Paper And Ink
by xXTheAnglesHaveThePhoneboxXx
Summary: Sam took the necklace off from around his neck, pulling my hands up so he could press it between my palms like a sandwich. "If this thing goes south, I need you to promise me that you'll keep this safe. You will go with the Autobots and you will keep yourself and this safe." The wire of the pendant was cold against my skin and I nodded stiffly at him. "Promise me!" he urged. HIATUS
1. Chapter 1

**Opening note:** _Welcome! If you are like me, than you like to know what you are getting yourself into when starting a fanfiction, so here we go: _Paper And Ink _begins some week and a half before the first movie and continues on after wards, going off script and into my own world for a long while, until the second movie. It does include my OC AU, but sticks with the storyline fairly close._

_I am also only familiar with the movies and my knowledge ends with those three, plus some of the stuff I learned in this site from other authors. I will give my very best to characterize properly, but feel free to point out where the characters stray from their true nature of behaviour. I was not too proud of Michael Bay's film, but after reading _Primary Mechanisms_ and _Through a Cybercat's Optics_ I simply fell in love with this 'universe'. I was also disappointed with Sam Witwicky, but considering the amount of stories here containing him as secondary character, decided to take a different path that will bring him to a new level and make him a secondary protagonist and not a supporting role. And after a major AU event brought upon by my author's rights, a reason will be created for why he was so much a wimpy loser before and why he will not be such anymore, but not out of my hatred for the character; rather, to propel the story to where I want it to be because I do not write things for no particular reason, just because it suits me. It is an important part of the plot and it will drive the first ark of the story very strongly._

_Now, a lot of you may expect the promised "romance" to go off right off the top, but these are two people with separate lives and they have their own separate interests and goals. They may have known each others for a long time, but has any of you tried to date your best friend? Awkward, right? Plus I hate stories where people fall in love right off the bat; it's just too unreal and sappy. The pairings will come, but be patient, my friends – patience is a virtue, after all. Remember: I focus on the feelings, not the actions._

_It will also like to note that my OC's problems may seem #FirstWorld to begin with. Bear with me, my friends, for I reveal things slowly, and there is always a story behind the story. I will enjoy keeping you in the dark, making you ask questions I won't answer for a while. It takes off on a slow start and the issues are fairly mundane and common, but it gets deeper as we go farther into the story. As you will notice, Raven can very easily get very controversial in what she thinks and in what she says and her attitude head-butts with itself. That is because while relatively stable, she isn't all there and is very out of touch with her feelings and with how to deal with them. She doesn't know how to handle them and how to handle herself and it puts her in some pretty stick situations._

**Story details:**  
><em><strong>Title:<strong>__ Paper And Ink  
><em>_**Rating:**__ T for now, but if readers are nice enough, I might rise it, or just make a separate one-shot under an M rating  
><em>_**Disclaimer:**__ all three Michael Bay films/the old cartoons, as well as all the characters therein do not belong to me. The cover photo isn't mine either, but my OC is (duh), and the off-scrip plots, but that's about it.  
><em>_**Warnings/Spoilers:**__ This story contains spoilers for all at least the first, if not the second, movie, and if you haven't watched either, than I don't suggest you read this without knowing what's going on. Although if you don't want to see Michael Bay's work than I can just give you a walkthrough of the first film for free.  
><em>_**Pairings:**__ [Sam/Mikaela] briefly, then focusses into [Raven/Sam]. This will also fall into AU territory soon after Sam buys his car, which will be some time between chapters seven and ten, depending on how much I will be covering in the time earlier.  
><em>_**Secondary pairings:**__ [Ironhide/Chromia], [Optimus/Elita], and suggestive hinting at [Bee/Arcee].  
><em>_**Special Thanks:**__ thank you in advance to each one of you for choosing to give me a chance to prove myself. Thank you to anyone who adds me to any of their listings, as well as anyone who takes the time to review, be it prizes or flames – I take both. As well as my beta reader,  penny . bear . 37 just not with the spaces because FFN thinks its a hyperlink.  
><em>

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><p><em><strong>PAPER AND INK<strong>__  
>By TigerLilly1995<em>

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><p>Depression groups were always uniform; a perfect replica of each other no matter how I spun it – and believe me, I did; a hundred times over.<p>

They had become so… expected over the months, that over a time, I ceased becoming surprised at this or that. Not that there were much surprises to be expected to begin with. The same pale walls, the same gray folding chairs; the same five teenagers came, and the same three adults. And me; although with my level of participation, it was a wonder the councillor even knew I was in the room. I simply slouched in my chair with my arms protectively wrapped around my torso as if they were some shield of iron, or The Wall, reached seven hundred feet tall. Maybe if I pretended long enough, it would come true.

The instructor, Mrs. Rayland, would go through her scripted procedure, asking us our names, force us to admit that we were a bit unstable and a little suicidal at times – clinically 'depressed' was the term she preferred – and then have us discuss how different did we feel this week than we did last week. I supposed it was the thought that counted, but a week's worth of time did little to change how I felt. But that was just me, apparently. Every now and then I was tempted to stand up and say "Life is a load of crap. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is selling something," and walk out like a boss. I refrained from doing so every time in the fear of that she wouldn't take it lightly. And also because I would sooner swallow my tongue that say something like that in front of a bunch of people.

Instead, I would press my chin to my chest and mumble, "My name is Raven Montague and I'm depressed; just like I was last week, an all the weeks before," into my cleavage, refusing to look up to see their faces.

I wasn't really depressed. At least not _that_ depressed. I was the average person, complete with my ups and downs, my good days and bad days because who didn't have them? That was life for you: sometimes it sucked, and sometimes it didn't. Given, it sucked most of the time for anyone involved in a support group but that was beside the point. My own depression was more of an excuse than anything; not something that made me hate life so much as it was a handy tool. To show for that I would rather get up on the school podium than be here talking about my problems to a room of strangers. No one could blame me for being antisocial if I was with a depression cover story.

Once in a while I would look up from the space between my shirt and my bra, my vision shaded by curled bangs hanging in strands on either side of my face, to see the older woman smiling at me like I just gave her a wad of bills and then go on to the next person. They usually said something along the same lines as I. The session would go on like that, and I would glance to my lap periodically to check the time; or how long it's been since the last time I checked. Two minutes was the answer every time, without a fault.

The truth behind my secluded behavior was that I was downed and under stress from all the bills and utility pays and never-ending reminders from the bank – about my loans, about my savings, about my Wi-Fi not being a free luxury, and about anything else that I needed reminding of. Then there were my bosses, always on my back about being late, or not fulfilling an order that wasn't even for my table, or about that I didn't take the garbage out before closing down for the night. Everyone was so _demanding_ all the time; there was just no satisfying them!

Ok, maybe I was a little depressed. But that only meant that I would much rather be sitting at home, marathoning Stargate and Supernatural; heck, I'd even watch Bones and Nikita for a change, catch up on all the stuff I missed. I'd write a little, tinker with that facial recognition software rewrite that I 'borrowed' from the FBI, and shoot people on Call of Duty. Going to these things at seven in the evening and taking to an all too cheery woman about how depressed I am was at the bottom of my priority list. If anything, her joyous attitude only made me more pissed about the whole arrangement.

But Sam said that sitting cooped up in my shack isn't healthy for me, both physically and mentally. So he signed me up and paid for the first round; his way of making me feel guilty to no end if I didn't show up. It sure did work, seeing as he's been dropping me off here every other Wednesday for the past four months. I would put on a bright smile the next day in a frail attempt to convince him that the sessions were helping. He, of course, never bought it.

After a time, it simply became another excuse to spend time with him, driving down the street aimlessly for an hour before we had to pull over across the street from the help center. The two of us certainly never lacked free time, but it was generally at his house and where there was Sam's house, there were his parents and I'd long since outgrown being comfortable around parents. They were always awkward, always assuming, always watching out for us to do something stupid that they can get mad at; parents were lame to be around.

I shifted in the plastic chair to get more comfortable and sighed softly. It wasn't that I was an insensitive ass that couldn't give any about other people, but that didn't mean that I _enjoyed_ hearing out their issues. So I paid little attention to the teen speaking (Jeremy… Jackson… Jared… something like that) as he talked about how he decided to join choir class back in his school this week. Apparently, while the football team was quite the treat to look at, they treated him like garbage and he felt he would fit in better in a class of sixteen girls and one guy. At least in singing class he would make it out alright without being tramped over by a herd of sweaty Neanderthals who thought being gay was a sin against God and nature and whatever else. What a bunch of immature jerks.

Don't get me wrong: it was awful and I was certainly sorry for the guy for the things he has to go through, but his problems weren't any of my business and as long as he kept me out of them, I was content.

Then again, I may not be the school looser, but high school was no sweet cookie for me, either; so I suppose I can relate a little. To the bullying, I mean. So I applauded him for his accomplishments just like everyone else in the room, cheering him on for the bold step he took. The teen sitting next to him gave him a good-natured pat on the back and the kid beamed like the sun. I put on a smile, mine being a lot more forced as I lied to his face about how he could make it, and he would eventually come out and the world would accept him for who he is; that all the dirty glances he got would magically up and disappear and other guys wouldn't be self-conscious when looking at him. We all had to lie through our teeth. I was happy for him, certainly; but unless some miracle came around and swept away all the crap people kept pouring down on him, he'd be lucky to make it through grade nine, let alone the rest of high school.

The next person was up, talking about what they did in the past week that apparently was worth the breath to discuss with the group. I never had anything to share with the class. Between having one person to call a friend and actually meaning it, and the fact that my social life was on the floor, I had little opportunity and even less will to do anything accountable. I went out for school, to the local computer lab, Sam's house, and, when it was absolutely necessary, the grocery store. But I practically lived at Sam's, the grocery store was a five minute drive away, and the school was maybe fifteen minutes worth of walking from his house. I ate at work because I was just too lazy to cook up some pasta or stick a frozen mini-pizza in the microwave.

Aside from the occasional, unnecessary outing, my living room couch was my nest; it was also my bed, my kitchen table and my closet.

I had no chance to make friends, and the one I already had was plenty enough for me. And since three's a crowd, and I had no drive to mingle with society, it left me with sitting here as people talked about how they were actually making an effort to improve their lives: some were getting high marks in school, other were joining or starting clubs, a few talked about how they got this great new job that would help them buy a car faster, and a couple just told us that they had talked to someone outside of family and made a new friend.

If I said any of that, I would be lying. I just sat and listened to people trying to do something with their lives, take them someplace they want, make them better while I sat on the couch with my bag of chips and watched Family Guy and avoided homework. It wasn't that I didn't want to take my life uphill; it was just that it was so _hard_, and my couch was so _comfortable_ whenever I thought about getting up and doing something. It was a cruelty in and of itself, the fact that in order to improve your life you actually had to try and trying was so _complicated_. And the easy path was the one that would one day land me in a dump with five children and an abusive husband who couldn't give any about his family.

On top of that, it wasn't as if I was a great person to be around, much less have a conversation with unless you were good at talking to fish or an antisocial-weirdo-whisperer. Heck, I didn't even know what had Sam glued to my hip all these years. He wasn't popular or anything and certainly not something girls tended to look at all that much, but his social life was five or six upgrades ahead of me. So overall, help group or no help group; my life wasn't going anywhere any time soon and that wasn't the pathetic part: that pathetic part was that I didn't do anything about it even when I had the chance.

What was even more degrading was that i knew all of this perfectly and for many years, and I still didn't do anything.

To continue our sharing session, we were all supposed to tell why we were here; why were we so down and broody and angry at the world. We were supposed to tell the sad part of our story. And of course I would rather be doing anything but that and I'd spent four months stalling but knew that my avoidance was coming to an end. So I held my breath and the circle came around.

Amanda told us about how her would-be sister came prematurely and died six hours after birth.

Bethany told us about how her car ran off a bridge and her dad drowned.

Jeremy was being abused in school and at home for being gay.

Camren talked about his cancer.

I felt bad for each of them, my mood falling considerably with every person who shared. I'd heard their stories a bunch of times, but they made me sad every time. The only thing that was worse than losing family, was knowing that you were going to die – a slow and possibly very painful death; desiccate right in front of your loved ones – and not being able to do anything about it. It was a horrible way to go, one that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

And then it was my turn. I never talked about my home life, and my social life was so nonexistent that there was nothing to complain about. But Mrs. Rayland insisted that I share today, giving me kind words of encouragement about how no one would judge. That had one of two outcomes: she either was lying and every person in here would secretly laugh at me, or nobody honestly gave any about me, in which case there was no use sharing.

Both outcomes, I long since realized, were excuses to keep quiet.

On top of that, they had their own lives to be pissed about, and I had mine. And my life wasn't any of their bloody business. I had my problems and dilemmas, but I didn't need to talk about them to make me feel better. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth; I was used to the hardships of living on my own. I by no means liked them; they were like homework: hated but essential. And besides, what was going on at home was my business to be nosy about, not theirs. They weren't entitled to know what was going on in my life as much as it was vise-versa.

… And I was still stalling the obviously inevitable.

And every time I walked out that door, Sam was there with disapproving little eyes, waiting for me to tell him that it was helping. He didn't need to be good at knowing a lie when he heard one, to know that I made no progress. And he's put so much effort into trying to get me better; figured if he couldn't get me to open up and share the load, at least I could confide in a stranger I knew I would never see again. He had high hopes for me, for my wellbeing and after all of his efforts, I would live up to his small, humble ambitions of seeing me better; if only for a minute. I did kind of owe him on that one.

I sat up a little straighter, casting my eyes down to my knees and knotted my fingers in my lap nervously. Even looking down, I could feel all eight pairs of eyes drilling into me expectantly and suddenly words were lost on me. Why was I getting ready to tell these strangers the story of my life, again? I had forgotten what I wanted to say and the reason why I wanted to say it and just stared at my knees. Maybe if I looked intensely enough, they would get the gist and pass on to the next person. Better yet: maybe they would forget I attend these meetings once again and I would be relieved of speaking for the night.

They didn't.

And I was still stalling.

I was better than this. I was stronger and I wouldn't let some eight people stop me from doing what I came here to do. It was easy. All I had to do was open my mouth and make words come out. Preferably words that made sense, instead of random chatter strung together into an unintelligent sentence as I searched for words. But at this point I guess anything would do, I told myself. It was like publishing a chapter on my website. Some people would judge and other would praise. All I had to do was focus on the good and pretending there was no bad would be easy. Piece of cake.

I couldn't do it; they were all staring!

As my heart rate picked up, I felt red color the tips of my ears and when I looked up to search the faces in the room, seeing they expecting gazes and waiting eyes, the red began creeping down my neck. The temperature in the room shot up at once, despite the air conditioning system being turned on to full output. A part of me wanted to scream at them to spot looking at me and at my chest, while the other screamed at me to remain silent as a mouse and still as pool water after closing hours in hopes that I would, somehow, disappear.

I didn't.

I could do it. Just a few words. Tell them why you are here, and they'll leave you alone, I told myself, repeated it like a mantra.

"Raven?" the instructor (a ginger woman in her mid-thirties and a little underweight, if you asked me) asked me softly. "I think it's time you shared with us what brought you here. Shouldering the pain helps with coping." I always found her too kindly, her voice too soft and too becoming. She was like a Nepenthes Lowii pitcher flower; pretty and innocent on the outside, but I got the feeling that she could devour just about anything or anyone. I didn't want to talk about my problems to a room full of people whose names I don't even bother taking the time to memorize. Scratch that: I didn't want to talk about my problems, period. No, not even that: I _couldn't_ talk about my problems to anyone. I felt mute.

I could do this. Sam wouldn't want me carrying everything on my own; it's why he signed me up in the first place: so that I could talk about what's bothering me. Sam would want me to speak up; he always wanted me to open up. I owe him that, don't I?

"I haven't seen my…" I began, clearing my throat forcefully when the next words refused to leave it. "… I haven't seen my folks in… in two years." My voice was a horse and I refused to look up to see anyone's face. I was vague in my description, not really saying anything past the basic facts. "They… kind of just up and vanished one day. I don't know, maybe they just… went on an extended vacation and forgot they left their kid at home or something." The dry humor wasn't helping my case as the stares intensified. I pursed my lips in my discomfort.

"I was left with this… with this woman; a friend of the family. So she volunteered to babysit me while they were away. You know, so that I don't get into troubles about living on my own under age and all, and look after the bills and the shopping and stuff, and make sure I go to school and don't get into trouble. Not that I would get into trouble, really; just stay out late and watch a lot of TV. So she's there to make sure that I don't to any of that because it's bad for me and since I'm not mature enough to do all those things on my own, she had to babysit me and look after everything until I can do that on my own, which probably won't happen any time soon, but I'll be eighteen and she'll be free of me and… You know, she's just there to keep me afloat till mama and papa remember they have a daughter back In California."

I closed my eyes and took a sharp, humiliated breath, my lids pressing together until I was no longer seeing black behind them, but mahogany. I would have slapped myself if I had the chance. How much more embarrassing can I get?

"I hadn't seen much of them, really… ever. They lived at work, so I guess they really did forget that they are a married couple with a kid at home sometimes. They'd just dump me off at a friend's house every time they went out since I was two or something. And since they never came to, like, school conventions and parent teacher conferences or Mother's days and Father's days, everyone keeps saying that my folks are in jail and I'll end up there, too, 'cause all orphans go to prison." That part was true… at least to a degree. Those were only immature idiots without a life or any sense of self-esteem. They needed to up themselves in their own eyes by putting other down, and I just so happened to fit the description. It wasn't personal; I knew that and once in a long, long while I even pitied them a little.

But just a tiny little bit.

It wasn't just sad; it was pathetic, that they needed to put someone down in order to feel worth something.

Everyone looked shocked and appalled and said what horrible parents I had for leaving me like that, like I wasn't their own flesh and blood and I let them pity me for a partial truth and a made up tale. It wasn't the whole truth, of course, but it felt like all there was to the story at times. On a bad night I myself would forget that I had parents that tried to care about me. I would forget the good times and feel like they didn't want me anymore. I felt abandoned and unwanted and pitied. Odyssey had to remind me, again and again, why mama and papa were M.I.A. all the time, and then I felt so guilty for forgetting about them and about what they had to give up for me that I cried even more, until I fell asleep.

So to soften the blow, I also added, "But, you know, mama and papa both came from loaded families with fortunes and fortunes. Must've won the lottery in their time, or placed a good bet. 'Cause they left me with this inheritance and I can unfreeze the account once I turn eighteen. So at least I'm set for a decade, give or take." That, also, was only half true, but they didn't need to know the real story behind my awaiting wealth.

I didn't want to say any of that, never meant to give away so much but once I began speaking I dropped my mind-to-mouth filter and blurted out a ramble of word vomit. With my cheeks flaring like a stop sign, I ducked my head further down and wished that I'd left my hair down so I could hide behind its safety curtain.

I kept speaking in half-truths and bitter lies until the end of the meeting. Mrs. Rayland pulled me aside as everyone was leaving, to tell me how proud she was of me for speaking up today, and of how she believed I would pull through. Two faces plastic doll of a woman, she was.

I gathered my things and left the building through the back exit. The front entrance was too crowded for me. The back room was small and empty, with only two begs (one of which being mine) occupying the linoleum floor and I let my thoughts run their own course for a moment, most going to how tired I was and how I almost suffered cardiac arrest in there when they told me to talk. I could just _feel_ everyone looking at me, expecting my story to challenge theirs, expecting me to be miserable so that they could feel like their life is better than mine, expecting me to finally break down and weep like a baby because life was cruel and unfair and love didn't exist anymore.

It was life; what else was there to expect? Like I said before: sometimes it sucked and sometimes it didn't. It was like a roll of dice; unless you load them, you were at luck's mercy.

Outside, in the warm, summer air – given, it was always warm in California – I found Sam waiting by his father's… Austin-something… Austin Hayley… Austin Hotly… something. All I knew for sure was that it was a dark green convertible. And it was old – probably as old as Ronald himself.

Sam stood more or less upright, leaning against the passenger door with his arms crossed; he preferred his right leg to his left, leaning to the side a fraction in an alien, chill pose that he was so clearly uncomfortable with. He took a particular interest in the street lamp overhead. He cast a cat like shadow over the sidewalk as he moved, hearing me coming and straightening up. His eyes came alive and smile blossomed on his face as I walked out of the shadowy lane into the yellow light. It cast a downward shadow on his face, darkening his eyes and lower lip but he still looked like the kind of boy who would show up at your house with a single rose to take you out to a polite movie date and complement your mother and play with your pet hamster.

I scrawled at him in annoyance, peeve fluttering in my chest as I approached. I stopped a single pace from him and waited for something. I didn't know what it was, though.

"Are ready for your Wednesday dose of hate?" I questioned and the little twit had the guts to tilt his head back and chuckle at me. I dipped my head and glared as hard as I could underneath my eyebrows. I wasn't so much intimidating as it was amusing and I knew it, but that didn't stop me from trying.

"Throw it at me," he said and I punched him in the shoulder. It wasn't hard, but with enough force to let him know how angry I was.

… Okay, it wasn't even hard enough for that.

"How could you do this to me? I trusted you, Sam; I thought you were my friend, my confidant! I believed in us; believed that you care about me and you… you did THIS!" I threw my arms out, gesturing around me and up the building I had just left dramatically. My voice hitched when it hit the highest note it could without cracking (which was not so much high as it was loud and squeaky). Sam only laughed at my outburst more, shaking his head as he dropped his chin to his chest.

"Don't laugh at me, you little jerk! It isn't funny: I'm traumatized!" I exclaimed, shoving my palms flat against his torso. "I said stop laughing; it's not funny!" I paused as he laughed harder still, bowing his head to look at me from beneath his eyebrows. "And stop looking at me like that and trying to make me feel guilty because I won't. I have nothing to feel guilty about because this is your fault and… God, I am _so_ guilty; I'm sorry for pushing you, Sam," I whinned, hating that he could turn me around like that. So much for holding my ground. "I hate you."

"No you don't; you love me and you know it. Come on, we'll be late!" He told me, dodging a poorly coordinated strike on my part and jogged around to the car. He then proceeded to hop into the driver's seat over the door. I frowned skeptically.

"Don't do that again."

"Not cool?"

"No," was my blunt, forward answer. "And I hate that you make me want to say that I'm sorry for shouting at you because I shouldn't be sorry for shouting at you but I am. So stop looking at me and let me get angry!" I added, flustered, as I narrowed my eyes. Way to make me feel bad for being angry. I got in, the door clapping shut and we pulled away from the curb. Ronald's car was loud and not very graceful, what with its age. But it was kept in a good condition, constantly being cleaned inside and out, polished, repainted if it got scratched, and the oil was changed on a scheduled basis. The battery was always charged up to at least seventy-five percent, so while even I knew that the engine was outdated, it was a good, trustable ride. And I really liked the shade of green. It was nice, cozy.

We spoke about some mundane matters, like how it was oddly warm tonight, despite it being mid September, or how Mikaela looked at him in class today and smiled. He kept talking about that one for a good fifteen minutes, speaking of the experience in deep detail. By the time we got to a round of truth or… well, truth, since we couldn't really do any dares in a moving vehicle, it became clear that we were scraping the bottom of the barrel for debatable topics that we hadn't already covered.

"What… is… you favorite… thing to… eat?" I asked, fishing out the words from the deepest corner of my head. Sam looked at me as we pulled up at a red light with a frown on his face.

"Didn't you just as that like six minutes ago?" We've been playing for ten minutes, and quickly running out of truths we didn't already know about each other. "And again three days ago? Look just because my favorite food changes doens't mean it happens once a week."

"Well you didn't let me finish!" I defended, lying again as I dug back into the farthest corners of my brain for something to finish my question. "What is your favorite thing to eat… when you're playing Far Cry with Miles?" Sam just arched an eyebrow at me, and then threw his head back with an exasperated groan of frustration.

"Okay, face the music, Raven: we ran out of truths." I pouted at him but gave up, pressing my hands to my neck as I looked up at the sky. This time I was glad I left my hair up, because even tied back into a ponytail, it was still reaching for my face and getting tangled in the wind.

"Alright, fine," I said with a determination, getting a great idea for a question that will really mess with his mind. "You know how much it annoys me when you talk about Mikaela. I hate speaking about her to you, especially when you praise her like a Goddess of beauty, even though you couldn't be more right because let's face it: that raven haired girl turns gay guys straight and straight girls gay. What you may or may not know – generally because it's more a girl thing, if you ask me – are the things talking about her does to my sense of self-esteem. Every time you open your mouth about her, I feel my self-worth dropping lower and lower, adn that fact is actually kind of really sad and pathetic. But you and I are friends and we can be open with each other with just about anything so here is my question: do you find me attractive?"

The car jerked forward and then came to a dead stop for a fraction of a second, sending my flying forward, only to be caught by my seatbelt painfully and shoved back into the leather. For a second it felt like every molecule of Oxygen was forced right out of my lungs as I was jolted forward and then back. I let out a short-lived shriek tightened my left hand around the seatbelt while the other dug its fingers into the dash-board and I turned to Sam to stare at him with fearful eyes. I think I just saw a part of my life flash before my eyes: I will have a Golden Retreater when I turn twenty and I will name him Jon Snow.

Sam's gaze darted between me and the road frantically for a few seconds before settling on the pavement before us and he stabilized his driving. His grip on the steering wheel tightened three-fold.

"Uh…muh… uh…" Sam began awkwardly, refusing to let his eyes leave to road for even a second. He stared at it intently, with a great determination; almost as if should he look away, the road would disappear from underneath us and we'd drop into an abyss. "Well, um, you, uh… I mean she… you… I uh… may… I mean… no, not y-you… you know… you're not, um… I mean, well uh… no uh… yeah… sure, I guess uh…" His awkwardness inspired me to mess with his head some more and I resisted a wide grin as I continued.

"Yeah, sure? _Yeah, sure_? Who do you think you are?" I tried to sound as insulted as possible, dropping my jaw dramatically. I knew well that I would pay for this latter with my dignity in his eyes, but for now I could just enjoy poking fun at him and watching him squirm uncomfortably. It was strange how guys could speak so freely of girl to each other, but as soon as a woman approached them with such a question, they lost their ability to string together a coherent thought.

"What is that supposed to mean, huh? What, I'm suddenly not attractive enough for you? Look, I get that I will never be another Mikaela, but I _am_ pretty! I can't believe you would say that!" He stumbled some more over his himself, unable to put together three intelligent words. "Will you spit out your defense or are you planning to choke to death on it?" I demanded. This time, I had to bite down hard on my tongue, when he gave me a look of complete and utter loss, his face paling. He looked as if he'd just seen a ghost. His mouth was hanging open, frozen like a buffering YouTube video and I couldn't see his breathing. Like a fish out of water, he fought to get a few words out, and those that did manage to escape him didn't even sound English. For a moment I feared his eyes would fall right out of his head, what with how wide they were.

"What… I… Not fair!" he cried out finally, desperately. "I'm talking to a girl about whether or not she's… _hot_; it's a lose-lose situation for me! What do you expect me to say? That I think you look hot? Wait, no; that came out all wrong. That was just… I just mean it's… I mean it's not like… I mean it's not like I wouldn't, but… no, that came out just oh, why is talking to you so hard?! It's not fair! You're fine and you're… you know what you are, but not as much as Mikaela or anything but you don't need to… no, that's just weird. You know what I'm trying to say: you're pretty as you are; you're even attractive if you want to be. And, and, and… and if you don't want to be, b-but I would never, you know… I'd… I'm not like that. I… God, this is just… shut up."

True to his word, he did, very much set on looking at the road. I lasted about five seconds before bursting out laughing at his discomfort at my sudden, strange question and my overreacting response to something he had no control over. He was right: he would lose the argument no matter what he said. So I decided to torment him some more.

"So… I'm attractive… to you. Sam, what did we promise each other? You promised me, _promised me_, that you will never look at me like that! You are such a two faced lair, you are! How could you? And how do you know that I look fine?" Of course that one was all in vain now, seeing as I gave myself away but I just couldn't help myself. His face was too priceless to let it go. His mouth was agape once more and he was choking up for something to save himself. Some nonsense gibberish was all that came out. Things I could not, for the life of me, make out. The poor boy looked on the verge of hysteria. He'd get me back for this later.

"I'm just teasing you, you big dork. You know I love you," I assured him, giving him a good natural punch on the bicep… or where his bicep would have been had he been able to bench press at least forty pounds. He relaxed a little two seconds later, taking a deep breath at last, as if a mountain had just been dropped from his chest, and his paled face got painted red. "Although it _was_ cute to see you freak out like you've just seen a naked woman for the first time in your post-puberty life. And you've been with that Mindy girl; the cute one with the red curls."

"Mandy," Sam corrected immediately. "Her name was Mandy and we never… I mean… well… I mean… you know what I mean!" I gave him a sorry look. Poor boy; his mother scared him out of being able to say the word in a coherent sentence, let alone in the presence of girl. Then again, she scared me out of it as well. Since my own mama was absent for the 'abstinence is the best' and the 'use protection' talk when I got into dating, Judith had to give it to me. It was a painful, traumatizing memory that haunted my sleeping hours for months. That woman hadn't a shameful bone in her body. I personally believed that parents should be able to speak freely with their children about anything, and be open to the fact that this is the twenty first century and we do things at sixteen that they wouldn't do at twenty before marriage; but the amount of comfort with which Judy spoke if these things was disturbing at best.

"You're a guy, Sam; shouldn't you _want_ to talk about girls and all the things they come with?" I asked him. Didn't guys love talking about what girl's pants they wanted to get into? Isn't that the defining feature of a guy?

Or was that just my experience?

We pulled up at the half empty parking lot at the movie theater, the turn saving sam from further stuttering. He pulled the roof back up as we selected a parking space and got out the car, the clapping of the doors disturbing the quiet almost rudely; it was invading and oddly out of place in the silence, causing my to jump a little as the two doors closed simultaneously. It was Wednesday Movie Night, tradition of ours for six years ongoing.

Inside, we stood in front of the movie schedule, trying to decide which movie we wanted to re-watch. The tradition went as follows: we went to the mall every once in a while to watch a new movie. We'd enjoy it as anyone else would. Then, one of the following Wednesdays we'd go to see it again, in the neighborhood theater and pick it apart piece by piece, looking for continuity errors, inconsistencies, Easter eggs, incorrect scientific statements and-slash-or complete science nonsense that wasn't even a real thing.

"So what do you want to watch?" Sam asked, his arms crossed as he looked over the movie board. I pursed my lips as I read down the list.

"Well… I liked The Hunger Games, but the movies ruined the books inside out," I said, more to myself than him. "Same with the Mortal Instruments, and I don't want to traumatise myself by watching a perverse version of wonderful paper work-turned-live action

"Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows maybe?" Sam suggested; a suggestion I shrugged off.

"No, I cried like a baby at the end; no more embarrassment."

"Oh, I know! The Dark World is playing in fifteen minutes." I consider the second Thor for a little, and then decide that I want to see what Marvel can pull off this time. Last week we watched The Amazing Spiderman. The main kid stuttered more than Sam, and I've seen his origin story about a million times by now. It's like they ran out of new ideas or something.

The first shot they took at Wolverine was action packed but only nice because I got to observe Logan's abs. The first Thor we critiqued six months ago finally made me realize why Jane – a supermodel-hot genius scientist who just _happened_ to be single – fell in love with the God of Thunder. At first I thought there wasn't a reason at all. Then I got a shot of Chris shirtless and changed my mind: she had six reasons.

"You get the tickets, I'll get the drinks and popcorn," I told him. "And get the seats at the very back." He was off to the counter to check us in while I got us each a half liter bottle of coke and a medium sized bucket of popcorn; extra salt, extra butter.

Twenty minutes later we were sitting at the tippy top of the seats and munching on popcorn as we got ready to pay attention to details and ask questions we didn't the first time around. We made sure to be as humanly quiet as possible and considering that there weren't so many people watching it in the theater anymore, keeping from being heard was relatively easy.

"They have too many references to the Avengers," Sam noted, leaning closer so only I could hear. "What if someone didn't watch the Avengers; then what?"

"This is all the Nerd Universe, Sam; I don't think anyone who has ever watched this universe _didn't_ see the Avengers. Then again, they do drop the words 'New York' a few too many times."

"Shouldn't Heimdall be all-seeing or something? Why can't he see Thor's girlfriend – who by the way, he kissed once and didn't call for two years – at that freaky Satan-looking thing from the prison, and that huge ship that's practically sitting on him?"

"They switched out the guy who played Fandral in the last movie."

"I can't believe this guy spent one long weekend with a girl that kissed him just before he left and he's still hung up on her. I mean come on; Portman is a face I can look at for hours and not get tired," I said, "But Thor is the king of nine frigging planetary systems. He's got a-bazillion girls worshiping the ground he walks on and he's bummed out over not being able to see Jane face to face. It's ridiculous!"

"I think they've tried to explain the Convergence like… four times or something."

"Asgard is the most penetrable impenetrable city in creation."

"Thor's dad says that they aren't Gods. Doesn't that mean that Thor isn't the God of Thunder anymore? He's like, what… the… _Guy_ of Thunder?"

"Odin is the worst father in history. In the first movie the guy went out of his way to make sure that one of his sons grows up to despise the other!"

"Why does the Ninth Doctor want to shoot the magic Cool Aid into the sky holes?"

It was ten thirty when the movie is over and we left before the credits started rolling, seeing as we've already seen the two post credit scenes. Sam and I snickered at everyone who didn't realize there were two of them. I crushed my empty popcorn box under my foot, picked up my flip flops in my hands and tossed the garbage into the trash bin before following Sam out of the theater into the half empty grand room. Posters and banners and slideshow boards covered the walls, advertising the different films that were hot in the box office this week and I glanced around for any idea for next week, giving a partial afterthought to all the cover posters around the great, twenty yard by twenty five yard lobby.

Just to the left of the theaters was the arcade. It was open all the way to closing hours and, unlike the lobby, was all but packed with kids and teens and adults. They had a million different games; games I would be playing for at least thirty hours if I went one round each. The blinking fluorescent, ultraviolet lights, gear grinding noises, game voices and commotion chatter was overwhelming and alive at the late hour. And seeing as it was Movie Night Wednesday, Sam's mama and papa let him stay out a half hour later than usual. That gave us… fifty three minutes, as I took note when I checked my phone, before we had to be on his doorstep.

"I got the quarters," I announced as we took the first game we approached. And that's how we went on. We came upon a game and I stuck a quarter in it and we went for a spin. Forty minutes later, we've played six rounds of Guitar Hero, six rounds of Star Wars, two rounds of Pac Man (thirteen to sixty seven in my favor, level wise, and that's only because I got bored and gave up), three rounds of Galaga, and we played Asteroids four rounds over. By the time we were done I was exhausted and ready for a break. My left temple began splintering with a migraine so Sam and I got out. But as we were leaving, the claw game thing – the one where you're supposed to fish a stuffed animal from the glass box – caught my eye. Inside I saw a plushy Nemo – the last one, by the looks of it, and immediately felt my face light up.

"Ooh, I want it!" I cried out, rushing from Sam's side to the Claw Cane near the exit. But when I dug into my sweatshirt pocket, it was vacant. Instantly, my cheery moods hit the linoleum. Great; I couldn't believe I wasted all my money. I realized I was bankrupt for the night. "Oh come on, man! That's so unfair!"

When Sam heard my complaints, he came over with his grandfather's old wallet and pulled out a quarter. When I saw the shiny coin, and curled my hands around his in protest. "No; it's my turn to pay for the games. No breaking the tradition." He cocked his head to the side, as though to ask me, _"Seriously?"_ and I knew that resistance was futile.

"I beat you by five rounds tonight. It's the least I can do. Plus you've been bothering me with Finding Nemo for months. Seriously, what's so amazing about a the film, anyway? It's about a couple who bought a house, then the wife and most of her unborn children were murdered by a serial killer. Six years later the dad's only surviving kid is kidnapped and he embarks on a journey across the world with an amnesic psycho with no self-preservation instinct. Okay for real Raven, you're into some seriously messed up stuff."

"But I can never win this thing, though," I admitted, hanging my head as I ignored his commentary. Don't dis the Clownfishy, Sam.

It was actually a little ironic, that I could bob apples a hundred times better than him (especially considering that he can hardly do it at all) but I couldn't catch a standstill toy with a metal claw. Sam pushed me out of the way gently and put the coin in, moving _The Claw…_ over to the radiant orange and white plushy and pressed the red button. The crane caught the volleyball sized fish and deposited it in the hole. I gawked. How on Earth was it fair that Sam can do it from the first try, and I've played this game a hundred times and won twice?!

"How did... how did you do that?! How is that even fair?!" I almost shouted. Sam stuck his tongue out at me as he took the fishy from the hole in the side of the machine. But instead of handing it to me, he held it between us and looked at it for a long moment.

"I… don't see what you find so fascination in this thing. It's just a fish. A fish so orange that it will claw your eyeballs out if exposed to direct sunlight." I shoved him in the shoulder as I snatched the stuffed animal from him, looking at Nemo's adorable little face and his oversized round eyes and cutie smile. He was just so adorable!

"Oh come on, man! How could you not think that this is cute?" I asked as I pushed the fish in Sam's face. "Just look as his cute little eyes. If this isn't affecting you than you have no soul," I said, more to myself than him this time as I smiled down at my new trophy. He was too cute not to look at and I always wanted a stuffed Nemo ever since I first saw the movie. Then I looked at Sam and whispered a small, insignificant, "Thanks." Sam smirked back at me victoriously, like he just saved the day or something. "You're amazing."

The auburn haired teen flipped his imaginary long hair girlishly. "I am, aren't I."

"But I still hate you for making me go to the depression meetings. I'm not depressed." At that, he dropped his hands on my shoulders heavily, pressing down as if to cage me from running, and looked me straight in the eyes.

"I know you aren't. But you aren't happy, either. Now, you smile at me all you want but you aren't fooling anyone. And i don;t know why I need to reenforce this all the time but I guess you;re just too thin to get it through your head: I'm here! Okay, I'm here and I'm listening so stop being so damn stuck up about it and dish. remember wha they taught us in Health last year? So choose; it's either me of a group of strangers but like it or not, you're not gonna keep playing the _I'm fine_ card anymore." For a moment, I felt very awkward. I didn't know how to respond even though I knew pretty well what he was going to say. But I still had no idea what to say, so instead I just nodded knowingly and waved the moment off with a dismissive shrug.

"Yeah, whatever. Okay; come on, let's go before your folks get upset about us staying out late. Besides, you need all the rest you can get this week. New car next Friday and everything." Or at least there _would_ be a new car if he can ace his project. With a nutcase ancestor, his chances were fairly slim. But he was devoted to the task as any teenager would be if the reward was a personal car. He needed three top grade and two grand at least and was given ten months to get them. Two he already achieved months ago since before Christmas; the last he was planning on achieving next week. He already had half the price for the car, and the other his papa agreed to supply if he can get top grades on three major assignments.

So he needed to rest and to practice – two things he's been doing too much of lately, if you ask me, but who was I to judge? Did I put any effort into school? No. Was I entitled to say anything, in that case? Again, no.

As we left the building, one of my arms cradling Nemo while the other was hooked through Sam's arm I felt content with my life; happy about it, even. Maybe if I left with my parents everywhere they went I would never meet Sam and become friends with him. In fact, I was certain I wouldn't have this and with all the crap I had on my plate at the moment, for a minute I really appreciated their absence: it gave me an excuse to spent time with my best friend…

… The very best friend I was lying to every day for the past couple of years; the very best friend I was double-crossing and stabbing in the back every time I opened my mouth; the very best friend from whom I was hiding the biggest secret in creation. It made me stop in my tracks. I had to tell him. I couldn't keep a secret from him very long; he would find out one way or another and better he does from me and sooner, than someone else and later.

In the half empty parking lot he looked very small, despite standing mere yards from me, the yellow light casting a ghostly shadow of him across the weathered pavement.

"Sam!" I called from my place, my feet glued to the ground. I couldn't make myself move as he turned around with a questioning look in his eyes at why I'd stopped. But as I opened my mouth, whatever I wanted to say was replaced by, Thank you." I chickened out at the last second, catching the wrong words just before they would get out. I couldn't tell him; not yet, anyway.

Sam doubled back for a second in surprise and confusion, and then told me, "It's just a fish."

"No, I mean about the depression group," I clarified, to which his brows met low over his eyes. "I… I spoke today. And I was't entirely truthful or anything, but come on, they're all a bunch of strangers who couldn't give a crap about my life so it isn't like they would care if I was truthful or not. And I was freaking out because everyone was looking at me and waiting for me to say something and I just felt so stupid and embarrassed but then that lady told me that I had to speak because she didn't want to waste her time with me and if I didn't want her help then I shouldn't come at all and I couldn't do that so I had to talk about why I was there. Okay, so those weren't her exact words but I can read between the lines so it's the jest that counts here. I'm still angry with you for making me go there and talk about my problems like anyone gives a damn about them and I only spoke in a bunch of half-truths and I told them what was going on. And you know what? It didn't help. I just felt like a moron in the end, spilling my guts out for everyone to see and judge but it actually kind of felt weird. Like when I started talking I couldn't stop and there was this relieving feeling somewhere in my stomach, like I just ate too much for dinner and couldn't breathe but it really wasn;t as bad as I thought it would be and..."

slapped both hands over my mouth in vain attempt to stop the word vomit just as Sam started to back away from my fountain of vocabulary.

"Wow, wow… slow down before you choke," Sam cried out, hands shooting up to either side of his head in surrender. With every spilled sentence his eyes grew wider and the word vomit just kept on coming and I couldn't stop talking or thinking or fighting with my hands, bending my fingers and cracking my knuckles and being nervous for no clear reason.

"Look I… I mean it's… What did we promise each other?"

"A lot of different things," I said, not wanting to expand on the subject because he had no idea how much of a load I've got going on at home. And it wasn't a load I wanted him to look at, let alone help me carry. He didn't need to see that side of me.

"What did we promise each other," he demanded again, this time with more persistency. "Don't play Dumb Blonde; it doesn't suit you."

"We promised that we would always be there for one another," I said, letting my head drop heavily for a moment before I took a deep breath and looked up again.

"And…?"

"And that if one of us fell, we'd pick them up. And if we couldn't, we'd lie down beside them. It was kind of stupidly poetic now that I think about it but we were like thirteen or something so it doesn't really count for that but..."

"That's right. Now you either let me pick you back up or clear the a space because I'm not going anywhere. Well, relatively speaking but you get what I'm saying." He paused for a moment, and then added, "And I'll give you my Grand Theft Auto for a month if you let me." I scrawled in annoyance.

"Dude, not cool. You know I can't back down now!"

"Yep, which is why I said it," Sam said, curling one corner of his mouth upward with a smugness that I kind of wanted to just slap right off his face sometimes.

"Shut up," I pouted.

Of course I wouldn't let him in on my home life. It was too much of a mess I didn't want him to feel compelled to clean for me. It was either that or he would turn away from me completely and I couldn't lose the one person I knew had my back. I couldn't guarantee that he would stick around if he knew and I wasn't afraid to admit that the thought of us becoming alienated terrified me. I couldn't let us become strangers again; not after what happened last time.

It was too hard to bear, us distancing, losing each other and ourselves in anger and disappointment.

I wanted to tell him how much he didn't want to do that; wanted to tell him that his response to the truth would most likely rival his most recent reaction to another secret of mine. He hated me for months, pretending I didn't exist even as I pleaded for an apology and swore I would never compromise the trust he put in me. Even now, years later, he kept many things to himself, things he used to tell me without my asking. I wasn't ready to lose him one more time. So I politely declined his offer.

"Sam, you were right: this is my mess. And if you'll be there for the rest of my teenage life to help my clean it up, what happens when we grow up and you move on, huh? I need to learn to take care of myself without your hovering. So just please let me do this my way," I said softly and he did as I asked, turning back Ron's car, parked in a bright spotlight, vivid in agaist the late darkness. The yellow light brought out the green of its pain job, plastering the dark shade in the night like a patch of colored paper on a blackboard.

Some secrets were meant to stay hidden. That, or maybe instead of dealing with it along I can simply not deal with it at all. my life would be so much easier that way, if I could just lay back and wait for things to resolve themselves. I didn't need to drag Sam into this mess. If I waited long enough, maybe everything would be set in place and I wouldn't have to learn to be a better liar.

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><p><strong>Closing note:<strong>_ so there you have the first chapter. I hope you guys liked it, and if you did then be kind and tell me and I will PM you the review response. Any questions, comments, or concerns are welcome, as well as flames since they are best at telling me what I'm doing wrong. As I said beofore, she is out of touch with her thoughts and feelings and she is prone to jumping from one emotion to another at the flip of a switch. There is a reason for that!_

_Also I have visuals on my profile, for character face claims so go ahead and check Raven out. You can tell me which one you guys like best, too, if you like :)_

_- AJ_


	2. Chapter 2

**_Opening note:_**_ Ola, folks! So here I've got the second chapter of like six to ten before we can actually get to the action and the Autobots, but none of those are going to be particularly slow, and I don't write things without reason! Just a reminder, Raven isn't realty in key with her emotion, mental state-wise, so her mood tends to swing drastically. She's not strictly bipolar, but she isn't entirely healthy, either. Now, I know how dangerous it is to write about disabilities of mental un-health, because t's easy to mess up and offend someone. I'm not going blind with this one. The blueprint to her current state comes from a darker period in my life that I am not particularly proud of. I got over it a while ago, but I used that time to base her current state of mind on. I'm planing to grow her from here, play around with her far she will stretch before snapping. Keep that in mind while reading._

_Disclaimer can be found in chapter one._

_Enjoy ;)_

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><p>I woke up with a start, gasping sharply through my nose as my knuckles buried into the pillow. I heard my pulse thundering in my ears, felt the hair on my shoulders cling to the sticky sheen of sweat that covered my skin; I was looking at the room through a glass of tears as my eyes adjusted from sleep. Sniffing through a slightly stuffed nose, I dragged my rigid fingers halfheartedly across my wet forehead before brushing them through my bedhead. Nemo was tucked into the crook of my elbow. He was looking up at me with wide, bewildered eyes as my own eyed dropped down to see what I was holding. Then I remembered that Sam won the plush toy for me at the claw machine last night. One more reason to owe him, I guess.<p>

I looked over my surroundings under half lidded, heavy lids as every muscle in my body tensed, making out the blurred, distorted shape of my flip flops up on the bedside table. Across the room, on the work desk, sat my open binder and laptop, grey in the bleached morning light. On top of my closed laptop, half covering it was Sam's math book, lying open to a crumpled page. We fell asleep there last night. I hoisted myself up on one elbow, slouching in my sheets as I glanced back at the LED clock on the bedside table; when I saw the time, I muttered a soft "_Darn it,_" under my breath and flopped back onto the mattress lazily. It bounces a little under my shifting weight but settled shortly, and I closed my eyes with a brief sigh.

Lately it seemed to happen all the time: I awoke minutes before my alarm went off. That was weird, right? I mean for someone like me, getting up without a fight before ten in the morning would be unthinkable, let alone waking up before the alarm goes off.

My lids were once more glued together by sleep. It felt like a pair of marbles was tied to my lashes, pushing my eyes shut. I dropped my heavy head to the side, and hoped sleep would find me for a few more minutes. Distantly, I felt my hand crawl up my body heavily until it found the ring pressed to my collarbone. I traced the tarnished silver with my index finger, before cupping it in a weak fist. It was rough and uneven against my skin, the translucent chip of stone sticking out a fraction into the curve of my fingers. It was a keepsake, passed from mother to daughter for generations down my mom's line. The old thing dated back to the mid-eighteenth century, and was probably worth several hundred dollars, considering the diamond on it was genuine. I pondered over selling it a few times over the past year but alas, it was an heirloom that mom hoped I would pass down to my firstborn daughter, and she to hers, and so forth. Unfortunately, it was too big for my bony fingers, so I had to thread an old shoelace through the ring before tying it around my neck.

My mom gave it to my when I was five and I had yet to take it off. I could still feel her fingers closing around my much smaller fist as she dropped this old circle of metal into my waiting palm. On that same day, my dad gave me the family heirloom passed down from his line, as well. His, however, was a Celtic trinity knot, also adjustable for a necklace. That one was hidden safely away in my bedroom, in a hidden compartment drawer. I hadn't seen it in three years. The ring was warm in my curled hand, and soon I couldn't feel it on my skin at all. Sleep began taking me once more, pulling my back under…

_WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!_

I gasped through my nose again, going stiff as my alarm startled me. The incessant thing started screaming at me at seven fifteen in the morning and I growled at it in return. Stupid clock. In fact, no: stupid public school system! Why did they make school start so damn _early_? It was seven fifteen! Seven _fifteen_! How could I get up and function right at seven fifteen in the morning? It was inhumane, cruel, and unfair; it was insulting!

I hated school, I really did. Just thinking about getting up and letting a bunch of know-it-all's rattling off some bullshit nonsense about the social norms and what was acceptable, for seventy five minutes five times a day, made me feel a little sick. I mean, sure i liked math somewhat, but who in the world needs Algebra? Unless they wanted the cheap teacher's paycheck, algebra was right there in the Us_eless_ pile along with PhysEd and the recorder!

"_I don't feel well; can I stay home?"_ I would complain to Odyssey.

She would answer with, _"No, now get up; you'll be late again."_ And thus my day would begin. I would purposefully draw it out as long as possible, taking my sweet time with everything and walking to school. Maybe I did it just because it pissed her off when she got phone calls from an infuriated principal. To be frank, I just hated the crowds of useless, faceless people stuffed in the hall at the lockers at eight thirty in the morning. They were everywhere, and there was no way to get through from my locker to my class without making any physical contact with them. I didn't want them to touch me, didn't want them to look at me; didn't want them to laugh when I tripped on my way upstairs, or yell at me to hurry up because the person in front of me stopped in the middle of the hall to talk to someone.

When I came in late, I'd get one hell of a talking from Odyssey about responsibility and the next day just skip a class to piss her off, and head to the computer lab three blocks away.

If you really stopped to think about it, school wasn't just a hell hole that parents and the Governments forced you into five days a week; it was a second home. Really, the average teen usually spent more time in that monkey pen than they did anywhere else. I guess in a way I was rebelling against the system by coming in late or cutting class altogether.

The school counselor always told me I was reading into it way too much, and there wasn't some big conspiracy behind taking kids from home and educating them the way the Government wanted it. The truth was very simple, really: they assimilated every person, immigrants and otherwise, into the system this way, and taught everybody from a young age the 'acceptable norm' of 'society'; taught everyone how to properly be a part of a cattle crowd. That was all just fancy for _you will do as we say you will, and if you won't, then you are not fit to be a member of the nation._ They were just angry that people like me could see right through them so they proclaimed me a 'bad example' to everyone else.

She told me that if I look into things too much, it'll take away the appeal. The surprises of life, she said, were what made life so interesting. If I overlooked something, I was bound to miss out. "If you take three steps forward," she'd say, "you'll have to take three steps back to find out what you missed."

News flash: I hated surprises. I also didn't like looking back to 'see what I missed', if I worked so hard to get to where I already was. You're only ahead of the race so long as you look at the road before you. What I had wasn't some great accomplishment (more of a disappointment, to be painfully blunt), but I'd only drop further if I stooped to reassess.

Besides, did Megan Gopher and Lionel Walker ever stopped to look back and consider than maybe, just maybe, they were the reason I spent ever Monday lunch time with the school's counselor since sixth grade? Didn't think so.

It was that blue room; that pale, windowless room with walls lined with books on philosophy and philology and a whole load of _gou shi_ that nobody cared about. That damned room with an old leather couch and a computer desk that always seemed to be untouched, and an electrical piano in the corner, unplugged and covered in a thin layer of grey dust. That room was the highlight of my Mondays, and the only appealing thing about that hole of misery was the door; the classic brown door that looked exactly like all the others in the building, only it didn't have the foot by two feet window with wire mesh in the glass. A solid brown door with two scratches on it, on a little to the right, just above the center, going diagonally to the left; the other was a tiny scar right under the elevated keyhole.

That brown door was like a lighthouse, the one thing my eyes ever touched, and it called out to me like a siren. I'd imagined myself walking out like I hadn't a care in the world, right in the middle of a session, so many times. I fantasized about growing some metaphorical balls and giving the woman a piece of my mind before leaving like I owned the place. None of those scenarios were ever manifested, of course, but they were pleasing images of my nonexistent bravery.

That was the room they sent me to in the first quarter of sixth grade and they didn't take three steps back to reevaluate what they did or didn't do. So why did I have to?

Needless to say, I hated that little claustrophobia-inducing room with a creepy painting of a crying boy in the corner opposite of the door and those epilepsy-happy, frightening ink blotches – the ones they show you and asked what you see. _What do I see? I see that whoever painted those should have done so with the lights on_, I'd think bitterly every time the lady held them up to my face. But the thing that causes the most repulsion is the elder, overweight woman sitting in the seat across from me. Every time she opened her mouth, I wanted to grab her own pencil and stab her where her heart would be, if she had one.

As if she knew what I felt like every morning when I woke up from a dream that I wasn't sure I had.

That was exactly how I felt now; unable to grasp at the image of what it was that scared me so much. Unable to find what it was that made my arms and legs shiver out of something that wasn't cold. I didn't know what my nightmares were even about, and I think it scared me more than the nightmares themselves. Sam once told me I screamed in my sleep. No often, and not loudly, but I never woke up, no matter how much he shook me. Eventually I would settle back down into motionlessness and he would somewhat relax. He never questioned me, not after I said that I'd tell him about what I saw when I deemed it necessary. A small, unfair part of me was disappointed that he didn't press to find out. I told him to leave it be, and he did. He'd comfort me when I didn't know he was there, and make sure I didn't hurt myself if once in a blue moon I'd wake him up from across the hall; he never questioned me on it, though. It was just another thing I admired about him.

No, I wasn't depressed. I was angry. I was so, so angry and so disappointed: with the student counselor, who thought I needed her help somehow; with myself for being such an honest failure in life; with my parents for every time they made me feel abandoned and unwanted even thought a rational part of me knew it wasn't true, that they were trying to protect me, and quite honestly with Sam as of late.

I slapped my hand down violently on the alarm and turned over in bed, covering my head with my blanket. I never turned the snooze on, so…

"Up. You'll be late… again." The warmth and comfort on my blanket was snatched from me as soon as it was over my head and I shivered at the sudden drop in temperature. I tried to groan out my protest, curling up into the fetal positing and slapping my hand around for the blanket. Then something sharp and pointy was jabbed into my side, and my reaction as instantaneous: I bolted up into a sitting position, eyes wide open as I got ready to defend myself against the tickle attack. As my vision adjusted to the grey light of the morning, I growled.

"That's a low blow, Sam; tickling is against the rules!" I shouted defensively, but as the words left my mouth, something _heavy_ smacked me in the face. I swayed back and forth as my brain caught up with my face. I looked down to my lap to find that it was, indeed, my pillow. Sam smacked me in the face with my own pillow. Oh, he was going to _get it_ once I got out of bed! I went rigid, my mouth falling agape at his actions, but as I was about to fire back some none too cleaver insult at him, he took another jab at my ribs. I recoiled immediately and Sam danced out of the way as I tossed my pillow in his general direction. If I had any sort of balance in the mattress, and if my hand-eye coordination was at all above zero, I would have hit him. Instead, the pillow assaulted the door frame, and fell to the floor with a dull _thump_.

"Sam!" I hissed tiredly, yawning and pressing the ball of my hand to my eye. "Not fair!"

"All's fair in love and war," he snickered from the door, leaning into my room as he held onto the door frame in a vertical push up position. "Get up. Bathroom's mine in three… _two, one..._" I was upright at _three_, but he took off running manically before my feet could touch the carpeted floor. My outstretched hands slammed forcefully into a closing bathroom door and I almost hit my face on the dark wood. I pounded the door several times with my palm.

"Come on, Sam; you got the bathroom first last time!"

From the other side, I heard him announce, "Tough love, bro. You snooze, you lose." I groaned and turned to press my back to the door. He got the bathroom first _all_ the time! How was that fair? I hit the back of my head against the door, with a purpose I myself didn't understand, before dragging myself back to the guest bedroom where I slept. He always got to be in the bathroom first, and I never did!

I picked the blanket up off the floor next to the foot of my bed, and threw it aimlessly on the bed, before grabbing the elastic on the bedside table and pulling my hair up into a ponytail, then proceeded to flop back onto the bed in a high-jump manner. Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply and mentally prepared myself for the day. There wasn't much I could do about getting to school on time when I slept over at Sam's place, which happened more than frequently. But that didn't mean that I couldn't take my sweet time to wake my brain up. I lay in bed, on top of the blanket, for at least five minutes with my eyes closed, before deciding it was time to get up. I really didn't like school any, but such was the law that I had to attend until I was of legal voting age. That wasn't a big problem, though. There was only two and a half months of school left before summer. Then it was grade twelve (I heard it was the fastest school year ever) and I was free.

Besides, being one of those people whose birthday was early in the year, I wouldn't even get through the first semester before I could legally drop out. I could get a full time job to easier pay the bills, something I wasn't in the least good at, and have more time to spend with my friend since I didn't exactly have any homework. Sam protested when I brought up the idea as a joke, but wasn't all too surprised. It was a little embarrassing, honestly, to be friends with someone who dreamed of going to University of Pennsylvania as post secondary and become a cosmologist. Right next to this relatively successful person with an aspiring future and a passion for astronomy was _me_: a girl with grades below average, and bad reputation with the local dinners and small clothing stores due to my unpunctuality, and a debt in the bank larger than life.

Not to say that I would live my life in poverty, of course. Oh no, I had a plan, and I had great potential in the less-than-legal industry. I could get into a bank account and steel any amount of money, and transfer any fantastic sum to any offshore account I have. So in a nutshell with my particular skill set, my grandchildren were set for life. Or what, did they actually expect the hospital bills I issue to be out of my own pocket? Thanks, but no thanks.

The problem was that I didn't know if Sam's moral bar could take the pressure. Eventually his humanity would win over and he would dump our friendship, claiming he couldn't keep my secrets anymore. If I pressed too hard, he might even turn me in. Then I wouldn't live very long, having been accused of money laundering, espionage, betrayal to my country, and possibly sabotage. That was the same problem I had with school only imploded; if you were outside the norm, you wouldn't be allowed to mingle with society and 'ordinary' and 'law abiding' people.

I tucked my black tank top back into the waist band on my pink flannel pajama pants and stumbled downstairs, half asleep still. I rubbed my eyes as I traveled down the flight of stairs and almost gave myself a heart attack when I missed the last step. I let out a short-lived cry of surprise as I grabbed the railing for dear life, panting heavily. With the recent, vague and distant thoughts of execution, my sci-fi overloaded mind went straight to an assassination attempt by some underground agency that wanted me silenced once and for all. Even if that were remotely true, nobody had any reason to want me dead; I never hurt anybody, and I wasn't some hippy hacktivist, living in my grandpa's old trailer van. Whatever classified info I dug up was mine to handle. If someone wasn't smart enough to find it on their own, believing all the crap the government fed the gullible public, then they weren't worthy to know. Whatever information I ever read was safe with me.

There was honor among thieves, too.

In the kitchen, I stare blankly into the fridge as I decide on breakfast. Scrambled eggs, over medium, or a cheese omelet? I set the eggs on the counter and reached for where the milk usually stood, but when I pulled out the jug, there was enough for just coffee. So instead I decided on egg in the hole.

"Judy!" I shouted over my shoulder as I set the milk on the counter and found the butter, bread, honey, spice, and vegetable extras. "Judy, you ran out of milk!" I announced as I started on breakfast. I ducked my head back in the refrigerator for a moment, and then added, "And also tomatoes, mushrooms, and… and I think the soup's gone bad!" I said as I lifted the lid of the medium metal pot and smelled the vegetable soup I helped her make a week back.

Everything in her fridge was on a sort of _hundred mile diet_ type of thing. Ever since she learned that 'fresh squeezed orange juice' is actually an orange dirt water concoction with a little perfume extra,for the smell, that's a year old, she went insane about what her family ate. Now, everything sitting in her kitchen came from the farmer's market, and was reliably fresh. The milk came from goats, the cheese and sour cream were homemade, and she even went so far as to melt butter on a pot twice before letting it cool off and harden again, so that she didn't eat any indigestible chemicals. After some episode of _Bones_, about a case at the farm where they explicitly explain how pigs are dealt with in the slaughterhouse, she also became vegetarian as well.

The woman was taking 'crazy' and 'obsessed' to a new level every time.

"_Just put it on the grocery list!_" she called back from her and Ron's bedroom. I scribbled the missing products onto the grocery list she had on a magnet on the stainless steel fridge, and proceeded to making the breakfast. Sam joined me downstairs, still dressed in his plaid boxers, but now wearing a blue ACDC T-shirt, when the third egg in a hole was frying in the small pan. I tossed the pepper and celery at him. He caught it just as he retrieved the cutting board from the cupboard.

"And ready the tea," I instructed as I tossed the bread and egg up. It flipped a hundred and eighty degrees in the air and landed perfectly in the middle of the pan. I didn't want to remember how many eggs I destroyed before getting the trick right. My kitchen stank like rotten eggs for half a month straight. Between the two of us, the breakfast was done in ten minutes, and I spread it between four plates.

"Served!" I called out, loudly enough for Sam's mom and dad to hear. Sam and I set the table and by the time Ron and Judy entered the kitchen, we each had a plate of eggs and veggie sides, a cup of tea, and a buttered French toast.

"Honey, I might just have to steal you away for good!" Judy piped in, her voice pitched and excited. The red headed woman took a seat to my right at the dining table, smiling brightly. It wasn't the first time she said it, but I giggled nonetheless. Well, this was what she got for letting me stay here half the time. I slept over on a regular basis, so considering that I used their water and air conditioning and electricity, not to mention the spare bedroom and closet space, it was only fair that I contributed something to the family.

Sam and I raced to eat and finished within a few seconds of each other. I wrestled to shove my plate, mug, and fork into the dishwasher and we ran out of the dining room, towards the hall. Coming near the stairs, I forced Sam into the wall with all the strength I could muster, pushing off him for more momentum in the process, and ran up the flight of stairs to the bathroom. I forced the door closed just as Sam slammed into it and we had another grunting wrestling match until I was able to finally close the door shut and lock it.

"You snooze, you lose, tough guy!" I mocked victoriously as I locked Sam out. I was not going to lose to him again today. I did my bathroom business, took a quick shower and let my hair air dry while I fixed up my chewed up nails and put on a little makeup; I usually kept a handful of it here in case. When I stepped out of the shower, I was back in my pajamas and my hair was still damp and heavy, hanging in matted curtains down my shoulders and back. Sam snorted in his fist when he saw me.

I scowled as I asked, "What?"

Sam shook his head dismissively. "Oh, nothing. It's just, you… makeup… morning… doesn't really fit in my head," he said, waving his hands around his head skeptically. I scowled more, my bows creasing into a low _V_.

"Yeah, right; because this is the first time in my life that I woke up on time and the first time I did my makeup," I told him dryly as I folded my arms over my chest. He made a noise in the back of his throat that suggested _well technically…_, and I smacked his upper arm, insulted. "Oh _shut up_, Sam; not true," I defended.

"Sure it isn't, because yesterday you weren't late at all. Fifteen minutes is no time whatsoever." I glared and opened my mouth to fire back something not very clever, but closed it when no ideas came. Okay, I'd let him win that one, but not before I got in another word of my own.

"Oh, please," I said as I shifted my weight. "You're just jealous because I look nice and you still resemble a figureless lamppost." Sam snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Oh I didn't say you didn't look nice, _or_ that you don't wake up on time. It's just that it's such a rare occurrence that this morning should be marked on a calendar."

"Egghead," I spat.

"Antisocial loner."

"Comic book nerd."

"law-breaker felon."

I frowned at his last insult. "law-breaker and felon are a synonym of each other," I deadpanned obviously, like I just bluntly observed that fire was hot and ice was cold.

"Okay, how about this one: smartass. Why do you have to rub it in to everybody that you're better than them at literary arts?" Because language arts was one of the two things that I was actually good at, in school and in life is why. But even when I didn't say that, the unspoken words hung in the space between us, written plainly all over my face. Sam didn't say anything to that; just shoved me past him towards the guest bedroom I was borrowing.

"Go get dressed," he told me in a mock stern tone of a scolding parent. I went back to the bedroom and shut the door, and put on the first things my hand touched. I pulled my drying hair together into a wayward ponytail at the crown of my head and shoved my school equipment into my bag. It was a military colored messenger bag, some five or six years old. The strap was withered on the edges, and it had a large coffee stain in the front. Nevertheless, I loved it. It was heavy on my shoulder, what with the large binder full of loose-leaf and the laptop I went nowhere without.

Out of vanity, I paused before leaving the room, and looked in the mirror hanging on the wall opposite to my bed. I didn't like being all fancy and made up, but considering that I didn't have many people to tell me that I looked pretty, I did want to look nice. Makeup, overall, wasn't my forte and I always kept it simple: mascara, some shade of brown lipstick, and concealer. But that last one was merely because I was pale, and the freckles came to stay; they looked _ugly_ covering my entire face! It was bad enough that I was naturally ginger. I didn't need the red all over my face as well. Don't get me wrong: I had nothing against red hair. I just hated it when it was on my head, which was why I became a blonde. Few too many morons got their laughs on making fun of me, so I started dying.

As I got dressed, I once again considered where I would go after I was out of school at last. I was never much for making plans. Didn't like to put up expectations of any reasonable height; all they ever left you with was disappointment, anyway, so why waste my time? But the idea of being left out in the cold once I was left with no more legal obligations concerning my age, where would I go? I wouldn't stay in this crap hole of a hick town, that was a given, but what place would I make a temporary home until I could, off the radar, complete the money transfer currently being leaked into an offshore account of mine on the Cayman Islands?

I didn't know. I was aware of that I couldn't hang around Sam for the rest of my life, nor would he want me to. That childhood dream of spending every breathing moment together was long overdue. We've both outgrown it as we realized that while we will always be friends but our paths are not on the same trail of life, and we'll have to part shortly. He wasn't going off to any college for a good year after high school, waiting to save up enough money just to start, and I wasn't going to leave his sorry ass all alone, either. But once he was out of California, so was I. There wasn't anyone out there in the world waiting to welcome me with open arms, and my closest relatives were off the charts and left unheard of for eleven months and twelve days as of today. I literally had no limits as to where in the world to go. And when I thought about it that way, the idea of leaving the nest made me more than uneasy.

I wouldn't have the safety and security of a backwater suburb that protected me from the feds, I wouldn't have the reliability of the Witwicky household if I ever needed help, and I didn't have anyone I personally knew that I couldn't turn to in the case of trouble. That put me into a bit of a situation.

Well, I'd cross that bridge if I got to it.

My hair was full of split ends, pale and chopped; it looked choppy and dry and frizzy but I couldn't afford a hairdresser. There was no way I was taking a pair of scissors to my own hair again, either, so it left me with saving up enough money. Naturally, my wallet was like an onion; if I opened it, it made me cry. But on the special occasion that I flipped my wallet inside out and saw paper bills, I was tempted to spend them. I hadn't had a haircut since past Christmas; it was kind of gross.

I left the room and walked across the hall to Sam's room. I came in and pulled his closet open as he was putting his jeans on.

"I need to borrow a sweater," I announced as I picked out one of his hoodies. We had a similar complexion but being a man, he was ultimately larger than me, making the zip up shirt several sized to big and very loose. I was down with it, though, because the shirt I was wearing revealed too much skin – especially on my chest – and my upper arms were too big and for my liking.

"A… ye… I..." he stammered, before settling with a defeated, "Help yourself." I put the dark grey shirt on and, dropping my bag at the foot of his bed, flopped lazily on it. I kicked my bare feet up onto the covers and put one hand under the back of my neck as I reached for the pencil on his bedside table with the other. "Oh come _on_, Raven! You're shirt isn't even low cut!" he complained as he jumped up and down, trying to get his pants on.

"Hey… you ever wonder what it would be like to have superpowers?" I asked spontaneously, toying around with his mechanical pencil. "I mean the _moment_ I knew I could walk through walls, a couple bank vaults would be emptied," I admitted shamelessly. "And then I would go into a jeweler store in the middle of the night and rearrange all the jewelry there."

"You know how disturbing it is that you just admitted that you'd commit a crime and I'm cool with that?" Sam said skeptically, half turning at the waist and arching a scolding eyebrow. I rolled my eyes.

"Really? I thought that's what you and I refer to as a Thursday?" I stated halfheartedly. "Isn't like you don;t know."

"Yeah, well... you're making me regret it. Don't ask, don't tell; remember?" he said as he continued t dress.

"Whatever. How about you? If you could… say… if you had telekinesis, what would you do?"

"Um…" Sam began, pausing briefly. "I'd… I'd probably screw around with someone's sanity. Like, I'd stand outside of their house and move things inside. They'd think their house is haunted." He snorted to himself. "I'd be their personal poltergeist. Oh, and I'd mess with the football team. Nobody would ever score, _ever_," he said, a smirk in his voice. I snorted at his answer; picturing Sam in a crowd of cheering people, very focused on never letting the ball go passed the line. "_That_ would cause a lot of outrage about our football team." He paused for a moment, and then with a grunt he added, "And Trent." I snorted as I stuck the eraser between my teeth.

"Yeah? Well if _I_ could do it, I'd probably reenact the Matrix. You know that cool trick Neo does with the bullets? I mean how sick would that be?" I held my hand up and made a very concentrating – or constipated, depending on the perspective – face.

"Okay, beat this: If I had telekinesis, I'd pull Megan's skirt off when she was doing that pyramid thing at cheer practice," Sam said proudly. Yeah, I could see that… and Megan does have a nice ass. Seriously, I was starting to think that thing is sculpted out of marble or something.

"Okay, I'll beat it: I'd pull her skirt down during a cheer stunt at a football game." Sam was silent for a little, before snorting into his fist.

"Okay, that's taking it a little… too far." I arched an eyebrow as he tried, and almost fails, to restrain a laugh. I shook my head. It was so _not_ taking it too far. She deserved it ever since second grade.

"Right, because she wasn't the one who told her pig-brained brother to pour glitter glue and uncooked macaroni on our heads back in second grade," I scoffed.

"Right: and then the next day, we cornered him in the sand pit and used mom's razor to wipe his eyebrows right of his face while he screamed like a preschool girl that saw a spider in her bed. Because you thought it would be such a great idea to bring a weapon to elementary school."

"Oh pish-posh, Sam; I took the blame in the end anyway."

"Mom still grounded me for three months," Sam said sternly. Alright, so we gave her the payback she deserved when her brother ratted her out to his parents and she got grounded, but that didn't means I couldn't enjoy seeing her suffer. That little joke of hers followed Sam and me through to eighth grade. Everyone called us Mack and Cheese. He was Mack and I was Cheese, mainly because of my red hair and _so many freckles_. At least in my head, Megan Gopher would be humiliated beyond repair.

"Yes, well… she brought her pet cat to show and tell in fourth grade on purpose," I defended.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because she knew I'm allergic. Or what, you don't remember how my eyes got swollen up to the size of apples and I couldn't breathe? She did it on purpose and I know it," I snapped angrily. That one also followed me through to eighth grade. They called me Rudolph, because my nose got very, very red and I looked like one of those pop eyed toys. After that, Megan kind of just forgot her favorite torment dummies even existed and blissfully left me alone.

Sam held his hands up in surrender as he shoved his things into his bag. "Down, puppy. Sit," he joked. I pulled myself off his bed and handed him his pencil. He looked at it with something between uncertainty and disgust. "Uh… why don't you keep it," he offered innocently and I shrugged, sticking the eraser back into my mouth. Fine by me. He swung his bag onto his shoulder and headed for the door as he gave me a sidelong glare. "I really don't like you sometimes."

I smiled proudly at him, glad at my success to once more acquire one of his pencils – they were always better than mine – and cooed, "I love you, too," and kissed him on the check… and immediately recoiled, squirming away and wrinkling my nose. "Sam, you forgot to shave again," I said awkwardly as I walked past him.

"Uh, no I didn't." I looked over my shoulder and rolled my eyes dramatically.

"Sam, you'll look good with stubble as soon as you lose some of that laziness fat and put some muscle on those arms of yours. Until then, take my friendly advice."

"Laziness fat? Says you," he fired back victoriously. Touché, Sam; touché.

He paused briefly, then completely stilled his walk. I marched right past him only to pivot on my heels to look at him.

"Did you forget something again?"

"What? No, I was just… you know, I was just… going to ask. Do you still… you know, you still… can't remember?" I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth at the question, and looked away from him—at anything but him. It was an accident, him finding out about my minor dilemma. I never meant to say it but he was there and I was on the verge of tears and I just kind of spilled it. It wasn't anything big or important, but it wasn't something I felt necessary to share with him. Everyone gets nightmares.

"No."

"Anything at all?" he pressed on.

"It's like… I try to remember, but every time I do I'm hit with a foggy mirror and it's all… not there. Not like I never dreamed at all; that's different. I just… can't remember what I dreamed. It's… frustrating. I mean, that counselor lady, that plastic doll of a woman, has the guts to pretend to know what I feel like when I wake up every morning, covered in cold sweat and try to remember my dream but _can't_. She says that it's 'going to be alright', and that 'dreams can't hurt you'. Well guess what, lady; yes they can when you can't remember them!" I didn't meant to shout, and covered my mouth with my hands when my voice rose. Yeah, they could. Maybe not physically, but it was all too frightening to not be able to remember a nightmare. It's screwed with my psyche all the more. All I knew was that it was a nightmare that further damaged my psyche, and not knowing only scared me that much more.

Sam pursed his lips. "She's just trying to do her job."

"She's just—trying to make my miserable with all of her dumb questions. How is talking going to help me if I can't even remember the thing I'm supposed to talk about? For all I care, she can just go ahead and write '_Incurable_' on that stupid clipboard of hers and get it over with. It'd make both our lives easier."

"Or you can just let someone help you out a little," Sam suggested innocently, rocking back on the balls of his feet. I huffed in frustration.

"I don't _need_ to be helped with a bunch of stupid nightmares, Sam."

"You do if you can't remember what made you wake up screaming and thrashing in the middle of the night. Raven, this isn't _healthy_!"

"I _know_, Sam! Okay, I know that it isn't, but I also know that you aren't going to be able to help me, unless you have a degree in dream-whispering hiding in the fold of your jacket."

"You can be a very unpleasant person to be around, you know that?" Sam stated offhandedly, his voice laced with annoyance.

"You really know how to charm a lady," I said acidly, closing the conversation.

He was only trying to help. I didn't have to be so rude to him. When I turned away, I wanted to slap myself for lashing out. It was so stupid off me to turn him down. He's done nothing but show me that I can come to him with anything and he'd take it.

Aside, of course, from the unmentionable.

We made it down the stairs and Sam shouted for his dad. "We need a ride!" I didn't have a car – and probably never would – and Sam was… in the process. Hopefully. His dad requested three top grades on three major projects, and two thousand dollars on Sam's part. If he met the criteria, he'd get his car. This bet was made past Christmas, and considering Sam only got his license two months before then, he barely made the requirements by now. He worked at a fast food restaurant four days a week, but just like me, was too tempted to spend every dime. As for his top grades… they weren't going by too well. It wasn't that he was a bad student, but our school didn't give too many assignments big enough to be considered major. He got an _A_ on an English essay, six pages long, and an _A_ on a financing project in essential math last semester (that one was the fist, actually, right after the Christmas break). And really, those were the only two assignments that his dad was willing to accept as challenging. Then came his final test: fifth period History with Mr. Kinsley.

Mr. Kinsley was… a very interesting teacher. Every assignment he gave was major, be it a textbook reading on why there are stars on our flag or a fifteen page essay on the history of the doorknob. And while he was very tough on assignments and requirements, he could possibly be the most easygoing teacher in creation, in terms of marks. If you begged and pleased just long enough he would boost you an entire grade. He got tired of whining very quickly, so his opinion was easily swayed. He was the type of teacher to tell you at the end of class, _"There may be a quiz tomorrow… maybe not. Sleep restlessly knowing that."_ But he was also very yielding if you asked him enough times. I had him for history last year, and it was both a piece of cake, and the hardest class I've ever taken.

So this fifteen minute presentation was Sam's golden ticket to a new stage of freedom: his first car. This was also my golden ticket to a personal chauffeur. That was why Sam and I came home last night at eleven thirty but didn't go to sleep until past one thirty in the morning. He was polishing his report up, and eventually I remembered I had a math quiz today. And somehow we ended up studying until long past midnight. And when Sam blew it up to be a lot more than it really was (a kiddy assignment that was hardly worth three of four percent of his overall) Ron agreed that this was the assignment that would decide his fate. Unfortunately, Sam took it a bit too close to heart, and was now acting like it was the bloody final exam.

"Ron's been waiting for you two for five minutes!" Judy shouted at us from the kitchen. "Get out of here!" We raced to the driveway, and I beat Sam to the passenger seat, smirking as he groaned in frustration and got in the back. Tough luck, hey?

On the six minute drive to school, Sam made a point of complaining about being driven to school by his parents, claiming it was embarrassing. In answer to this, Ron stopped the car and invited Sam to get out and walk, instead. I chortled like a pig and Sam shut his mouth.

School… the thing that was invented for the sole purpose of making teens like me miserable. It was just a way for teachers to get their anger out and get paid to do so. It was a waste of time and as soon as I was handed my grad certificate, I was OUT. I was going to leave this backwater South Gate suburb and I was never coming back. In fact, l was wiping my ass with the Los Angeles county and moving to Florida. I was already making sure I was financially set for life after high school, and as soon as I was legally old enough to live without a guardian, I was hightailing it. Again, don't get me wrong: I appreciated what Odyssey did for me, and I appreciated what my parents did for me. But there was staying safe, and then there was living in a dump and quite frankly, I was doing the latter rather than the former.

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><p>Have you ever looked up to meet the bluest eyes in creation and just wanted to get lost in their dreaminess, only to have the owner open up his mouth and ruin everything?<p>

Well, that was Dyson for you. He was easily the sexiest guy on campus, with the whole package included in the title; looks, brains, enough charm to undress a nun, and a spot on the basketball team. He was, in essence, the male equivalent of Sam's long-time crush, Mikaela. I've always found it strange that the two never hooked up, to be perfectly honest, but that was beside the point. He was that one type of person; that guy that you either loved or hated, without a neutral in-between. It was like Twilight with him: Team Edward or Team Jacob, and the two parties never met eye to eye.

For a long time I've tried to remain indifferent to his occasional comment and snide remark. For the most part, he stayed out of my way and I away from his. That changed on the first night on this past summer break. He held a party at his oh so endless house, and everyone who could come would come; it was basically high school law. He only just finished his second year, but had reputation even among the seniors.

But that was beside the point. That particular part actually came much later, after whatever happened... happened.

Three things ruined me out of looking him in the eye today. The first was that he was blood cousins with one Trent DeMarco. Trent was a tough guy wannabe with an over imploded ego and a bad reputation with the school staff. He thought that since he was related to richest family on this side of South Gate, he might as well never let anyone forget it. In truth, all he did was soil a good family name. His mother was a doctor and his father was a lawyer, and Dyson's parents were running their own dentist office from four generations up the family tree. Both families were very rich – or at least that's how it always looked like to someone like me – and both families were held to a high social standing. Trent was like a wart on an otherwise perfect face. Without him, life would be a lot easier and the minds of others wouldn't have to be spoiled by his endless stupidity and egoistic behavior.

The second reason was that, as I previously mentioned, I was ready to drawn in his blue eyes and for a split second, on my first day in high school, I felt like we were going to get married and have many beautiful babies. And then he opened up his mouth.

It was eight thirty in the morning and I was bloody sleepy. I crawled into A Slot Essential Math and took the seat farthest from the door. It was in the far left hand corner, away from everyone and I marched right to it, ready to disappear. There were people already in the class, most sitting on their tables as they spoke. But as a rule, as soon as a new person walked in, they all turned to see who else was in their class. I was no exception. The first thing I felt in my first class was that everyone was sizing me up, assessing my coolness level and whether or not I was worth being friends with.

Our high school collected students from four other middle schools, which meant that come ninth grade, you only knew twenty to twenty five percent of the people going to the same grade as you. And considering that no one person had an identical schedule, what with five available periods and so many elective classes to choose from, you were lucky to know two of the people in your class on the first day. When I walked in, I immediately did a headcount and found that I didn't recognize a single face. So I went to sit at the very back with fifteen pairs of eyes racking over me, some trailing to very inappropriate places; I felt naked and exposed unlike ever before. Okay, that one was a lie; I felt like that on the very first day of grade one.

My arms were folded over my binder, cushioning my head like a makeshift pillow and I closed my eyes, allowing myself two minutes of rest before I had to start learning things. Then I felt someone watching me intently. I looked up and met his eye and for a single moment I thought that they might consume me. They were so blue and so deep, shaded over by a choppy waterfall of blonde bangs. He was looking down at me, the tilt of his head casting a shadow over his face and though he was only fourteen, he seemed dangerously intimidating to me. Nevertheless, for a second I actually thought I was in love.

And then he opened his mouth and the first words this man who I compared to a Greek God not three seconds beforehand said, "The back is for the cools kids. That's my spot; loners sit in the front."

And so my greatest disappointment began.

The third reason was that it was never pleasant to bump into someone in the hallway between classes, and look up to see the face of your first boyfriend looming over you. He shot up like a mushroom after a summer rain in his puberty years, towing over me at least a foot – and that said something, considering I was by no means short. The top of my head came up just below his chin, and apparently he got a haircut between now and the last time I saw him. Instead of the long, nearly shoulder length hair he used to wear, the style he was now rocking was a close crop, short spikes of messy-styled hair pointing out in every direction like he was some pop star or something.

It happened on the first day of summer, the transition between freshmen year and sophomore. I got in invitation to a _School's Out, Summer's In_ party down by Eagle's Lake. It was a large pond really, the leftovers of rain running downhill to form what is now the number one go-to on this side of South Gate, if you're looking for a Bar BQ. It was a really nice place and I actually found myself enjoying the time, despite all the people staring at me because I was one of the few girls _not_ in a bikini. I felt more vulnerable than I think I would have if I actually did invest in bringing a bathing suit. It was like everyone was looking at me like a piece of meat, seeing right through my clothing like I wasn't wearing any on my body.

It was nine thirty in the eventing and the sun was still a little way up, already disappearing behind the horizon but not quite yet invisible. Dyson came up to me, whispering that he wanted to talk to me in private. I got suspicious first, then nervous as he crooked his finger at me, gesturing for me to follow. That was exactly how so many rape awareness videos they made us watch in school started.

We went to his car, rounding to the back of it as though to be shielded from prying eyes and he said that he was sorry for what he told me on the first day. I was, of course, surprised that he remembered it at all, but accepted his apology, knowing full well that if I didn't then I would most likely come to regret it later. Over the duration of that first year, I was doing a good job never getting in his way, and in exchange he didn't bully me. In fact, I was sure he didn't even know I existed.

I was proven wrong when he said that he's been watching me in Essential Math over the year and thought that I was a really nice girl. He said that he thought I was hot and he thought I was really sweet and, right up straight, no mumbling and muttering like an idiot, asked me if I was free on Wednesday and if I wanted to go to dinner with him.

I was too stunned to say anything other than, "Yeah, sure… I'd love that," without as much as a smile on my face to support my words with a facial expression. It took me a few seconds, but eventually I realized what just happened and what I agreed to, and struggled to curve my lips upward.

At home, I had a minor panic attack, which imminently resulted in a major asthma attack. I had caught a date with the hottest guy in school by just being a mute, antisocial little loser sitting at the front desk. That was… new. And to be quite honest, I soon grew to love it. Minus the three months of unstoppable attention. Some congratulated me for scoring it with Dyson. Other more jealous people called me a slut or a dirty whore, and several other crud things I'd rather keep blissfully out of my memory. They tried to humiliate me in front of the school and succeeded on several occasions, increasing my absences and decreasing my grade dramatically because really, I had enough of those stuck up, selfish jerks who fed on the misery of others like it was chocolate cake. Adding those new names to the ever-growing list in my notebook, I barely got through it. The only two bright spots were Sam with his undying support, and the fact that Dyson defended me in front of those people like any good boyfriend would.

I tried not to get cynical with him, tried not to spit out that I didn't need his protection and for those painful three months. It worked; the rumors eventually died, as did the sidelong glances. The cool girls didn't corner me in closets and threaten to make my life a living hell, I had a good friend at my side, helping me set up prank plans for them late at night, and a wonderful first boyfriend who, of course, could put me on cloud nine with just a smile. I ignored people on the whole, introduced him to my friends and introduced my friend to him, gave him the ultimatum of _be nice or I'll kick your sorry ass_, and managed to get traumatized for life when Judy found out and decided she was obligated to give me _The Talk_.

After the three month fiasco about someone like Dyson dating someone like me, I really felt good about life. It was a rare thing, and so precious to me.

Despite the fact that it was the year I said my last goodbye to mom and dad, and made the awful choice of getting a job so that I could pay the bills on my own, everything was looking up. Dyson even – accidentally – found out about my financial position and didn't care. He didn't offer to help, thankfully, and simply accepted that I would never live up to his family's standards. When he did learn, however, he advised that I don't meet his parents because they were good people right up until they thought you somehow threatened their children or their reputation. The fact that I was poor was 'a threat to both'.

For the longest time, I was insecure. I thought he was ashamed of me and tried to put as much distance between myself and him as I could, so that it wouldn't hurt when he cheated on me, or just plain dumped me in front of the whole school.

But that wasn't my Dyson. My Dyson protected me even against his parents, when they did accidentally find out. It was about a month after the first day of summer, after whatever happened, happened. It was something I never let him discuss, and he respected it but regretted deeply. He pushed, saying I really should talk to someone about it but I refused, turning him down at every turn. On occasion, I even insulted him. I didn't mean to; the words just _came out_ before I could stop them.

Just like he said, they weren't happy at all – said they wouldn't have their first born son dating street trash. Dyson stood up to them for me, shouted at them for insulting me time and time again. He wasn't happy in the least, but neither was I surprised. I knew the day was coming, and I knew I couldn't do anything about it. All I could do was try to not think about it and for months now, that plan was working. I kept my head down, I allowed myself to be forgotten as I should be, and faded away from the school's dating history and the history of the world. It was better that way; I wasn't making any more noise where I shouldn't.

So imagine my discomfort and sharp stab of guilt that hit me when I was walking too close to the lockers with my head down, and somehow managed to trip over someone's feet. The person was talking with his palls between classes, leaning against the lockers with his feet pushed forward. My toe caught on his and I was sent flying, just barely missing the floor when someone caught my waist. It was the last thing I was expecting. I was prepared with the laughing and the insults, and I was prepared to take it silently, as I should, and then apologize for hurting them and walk away. I wasn't expecting to look up, ready for a scolding, only to find the blue eyes that fifteen and sixteen year old me felt she might fall in love with staring back at me with concern. That concern, however, quickly turned into a shocked recognition when he saw that the blonde who just tripped over him was his ex-girlfriend. It was… a shocker, I guess, for the lack of a better word.

I regained my balance quickly, grabbing his fingers and prying them away from my sweater as fast as I could without hurting him. I cast my eyes to the floor and didn't dare look at him again, brushing a lone strand of hair half-heartedly behind my ear and muttering an apology before walking away with my eyes, stupidly, on my feet at an impressive speed. Maybe if I could just pretend that it was just someone who looked like him, I could then easily pretend that it didn't hurt so much.

Damn high school love. It never lasts and it's the heartbreak that hurts the most to let go of.

No, on second thought; damned his stupid parents with their stupid precious reputation! I doubted we'd still be dating today, but maybe we wouldn't have to part so harshly and forcefully. We'd still be an ex-couple, but maybe we could make it so that we hurt each other less in the breakup process.

I didn't blame him, really. It was a high school crush and family always came first. If anything, I admired it about him, that it clearly hurt him to say goodbye and he was clearly angry at his parents. And maybe he did hold it against them afterward, but he was devoted to his family and he put their interests before his own. I was familiar with that feeling; I knew how hard it could be o hold someone else's needs before your own wants. So if anything, I envied him for his ability to put his family before his teenaged hormonal roller coaster.

People our age were driven by emotion and hormones, not by the brain – we covered that bit last semester in Psychology. To be able to accept that while your parents are wrong, it would be even more wrong of you to disobey them… well, it was impressive. I just wished that it didn't hurt him as bad as it did me in those first few months.

I ducked into the nearest bathroom, seeking to escape the collective _ooohh_ of his buddies as they recognized me. I felt like they were about to eat me alive, what with their reaction. I guess I deserved it, in a small, insignificant way but it wasn't like I was at fault, either. What where they going to do? Blame me from not having money? It was embarrassing enough as it was; having to earn the clothing on my back and the roof over my head and the computer on my desk; it felt humiliating just thinking that while everyone borrowed money from their parents, I was the loser who had to work for everything she had like a high school dropout moronic hobo.

I didn't want to have to go to work every day just to be able to afford to pay the rent, and then forcing Odyssey to go to work as well so that I could be able to pay for the utilities and for the summer school from last summer, and for the student fees that are required to be paid at the start of every year.

I was already embarrassed enough to tell Dyson; I didn't need the whole school going back to saying that my parents are abusive, AWOL assholes who are in jail for theft of drug dealing. I didn't t need them soiling my family name with their stupid guesses that were as far off as they get and I sure didn't need them to be making any noise about me. Besides, if the law found out that I was a minor and living alone at home without constant, legal adult supervision I'd find myself in the foster care system before I could even blink.

I was so concentrated on the laughter I left in the hallway, so concerned over the embarrassment of tripping over my ex in front of his friends and making a fool of myself when all I wanted was to keep away, that I ended up mortifying myself furthermore: I walked into someone else.

For the second time in the past three minutes I walked into someone and for the second time I looked up to meet inhumanly blue eyes. It was a crime to have such blue eyes. I looked up and I saw _her_. Banes.

It had to be bloody _Banes_ of all people. This woman, this seventeen year old, tall, athletic woman that was Banes was the bane, pun intended, of my existence. Being one of the most popular girls in school, she was by far the most beautiful. She had everything: eyes, nose, lips, cheekbones, arms, breasts, waist, thighs, legs; the whole package. Everything about her physique was to die for. She even had blue eyes and naturally black hair! If you could become her friend, you could have everything. Being in her good books meant being in the good books with her friends; and if you were in the good books with her friends, nothing you ever did was uncool. It wasn't like in the _Mean Girls_, but if they liked you, you had the golden parachute to ease your fall if anybody did anything to you.

She and Sam had a bunch of classes together last year, including math, geography, English, and science. This year, they had two: PE and history. She was also his crush. His sun in the sky. His object of stalking for the past several years. He knew everything there was to know about her, creepy as it was, including what her favorite color was, which restaurant she preferred to eat at, which clothes she tended to wear most, he read every one of her Facebook status updates with undying hope, and knew roughly where she lived. She was his muse and Goddess of perfection and I be damned if it wasn't so: she was the definition of perfect. This Banes, this girl who probably didn't lift a finger over the duration of her entire life, was perfect just because she was born that way. She didn't do _anything_ to earn her place as the queen of everything beautiful, but she got it anyway. Every boy or man, teachers including, wanted her at one point or another – be they dating, single, or even married. Bloody hell, even some of the girls wanted her!

She had flawless skin, silky hair, abnormally blue eyes that widened just enough when she asked you something, and made it impossible to say no. She had all of her faces down to perfect execution; her _holier than thou_ face, her _kicked puppy_ face, her _my mother died when I was little, be sorry for me_ face, her _I'm so shallow and disgusting, I'm sorry for insulting the Earth for being born_ face, her _let's pretend that everything is okay because I don't know if I can take it all right now_ face, her _I will fuck you up so bad that your own mama won't recognize you _face, and her face of pure and undeniable innocence. There was nothing that she could say that you wouldn't believe.

People like her and Dyson were genetically programmed to find each other, and they produced the perfect gene code for the ultimate human being. Their kid would probably have super powers if they ever actually hooked up. But they didn't. In fact, I was certain they barely knew each other's name from the amount of contact going on between the two. You'd think they'd be planning a wedding by now but no, Dyson was too good for her and Mikaela was too good for him. They never got together, even for show.

"Hi," she started. "You're… Raven, right? I'm Michaela." My first response was, _I know who you are_. My second response was, _And_ _I'm Not-Doing-Your-Homework_. My third response was, _Get out of this bathroom before anybody sees you talking to me otherwise your reputation will be ruined_! My fourth response was, _Oh bloody hell, why is someone like you talking to a lowlife such as myself?! Don't get dust on your spotless reputation, Michaela, get away before anybody can see you with a loser!_ It was a rather bipolar reaction and I couldn't decide if I felt honored, insulted, or insult_ing_ for having her standing half a foot in front of me.

Instead, my whispered words, almost too soft to hear, were more like this: "Um… yeah…" That was what awkwardly stumbled out of my mouth like a drunken hobo. I ducked my head back down, and wished that I left my hair down so I could shield my freckled face from her.

Oh how I wanted her face. Hell, I wanted her entire physique. She was tall, slender, athletic, healthy, and everything I ever wanted to look like. I resisted the urge to move farther from her, lest to put a spot of dirt on her shiny record, and stared down at the beige tiles of the bathroom floor. The yellow light cast a soft grey shadow across them in a deformed mountain.

"I'm sorry. Hey, you're actually the one I wanted to talk to," she told me, her voice soft as a feather as she beckoned me after her when she went back into the lavatory. Somehow I felt caught between closing the door to keep the school from finding out she was talking to someone like me and realizing how inappropriate it would appear if someone walked in on the two of us behind said closed door. That would be… unfortunate.

She set her bag on the sink counter, between two ceramic bowls, one of which was flooded with soap water and the other held an impressive amount of someone's light brown hair. I felt the gag reflex trying to take effect. Gross wasn't even the right word. Was this anonymous person shaving their head bald into the sink? This is a public bathroom for crying out loud!

She checked her face in the mirror, whipping a phantom eyelash from her perfect cheekbone before turning to me, toothy smile still on and radiating like a nuclear power plant.

"I was wondering if you would mind giving me a tutoring session," she began. I didn't dare interrupt, even as my brain began to shut down and I began over thinking the last two seconds. Did I hear her right? "It's May the first and there is a month and a half to exams. See, there was a bit of a misunderstanding with my schedule in the beginning of the year and I had to have it rearranged. Unfortunately, I ended up with no enough elective courses of the year, so I signed up for Computer Science. And I am not confident that I will get as high a mark on the exam as I would prefer. And since I know you're totally awesome at it, I was hoping you could give me some tutoring sessions; study session works as well. I just really need this mark and I know you do, too. What do you think?"

I turned it over in my head, then upside down, then out it on the side and then flung it inside out. And by the time I was done processing it all, the one thing I could say was a stupid, embarrassing, "Who told you I needed the boost?"

Way to go, numbskull. When someone like Mikaela talks to you, you pretend that you're a normal person, not a retard, Raven! Get a grip of yourself and act natural. It's only the most popular girl in the school most likely pulling a cruel prank on you. You step outside and someone will probably dump iced tea all over your head so focus and try not to think about how amazing she looks in a scarf.

I scolded myself internally, hoping I wasn't making hand gestures at myself as I thought. I didn't think my heart could take that much self-disappointment in five minutes.

"That lady in Student Services said I should get your help; she said that you could use this as well. It's not brain surgery." I nodded slowly, trying to wrap my head around it. "She said if you tutored me, you would get a touring credit out of it. How does that sound to you?"

So Banes came to talk to me and asked me for help. Not just any help, thought: she wanted me to tutor her in Computer Science and if I did I'd get a whole credit, like it's an out-of-school extracurricular.

_No_, I wanted to plainly say, and turn away like I didn't give two shits about her schooling – because I really truly didn't care. Heck, a part of me wanted her to fail so that this girl would stop being so darn perfect all the time and be human for once in her life!

Then Sam's voice came up in my ears, pleading me, _If you don't do this for yourself, do it for me! I'll do anything, I swear_, on his knees. If I tutored her, Sam would most likely have me wingman for him, so technically it wasn't just an extra credit for me, it was also a boost for Sam; a direct link to her and an excuse to get to know her better. I, in no way, thought a girl like Banes deserved a guy like Sam but this was high school. It was a time to make mistakes and fall on your ass and cry, otherwise he'd never learn which types of girls _not_ to go after. I didn't have any hope of her remembering me once the semester and out tutoring sessions were done, so the 'good books' wouldn't do me much good in this case, and she'd sooner die than tell anybody she's getting tutored so other than the marks, there was no gain in this for me.

Fortunately, the marks were enough to win me over, but as my brain was in a stupor, incapable for forming intelligent words, I jerked my head in a motion that somehow resembled a nod. In front of a girl like her, I didn't trust my vocals or my brain cells to formulate a decent response that wouldn't humiliate me. Knowing my luck, if I opened my mouth while looking at her, I would probably say something like, _You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my whole life…_

She would think I was a dyke then, on top of everything, and the news would spread like wildfire. I had enough humiliation in my life without that misunderstanding. Gingerbread, Carrot top, Mack and Cheese, Rudolph, soulless demon, retard, nerd, Fire Crotch, Redhead stepchild, Strawberry Shortcake, and Satan's Kid. That was the compacted list of names I had written in my _List of Reasons Why I Cry Myself to Sleep_ notebook. I didn't need to add _Red Riding Chicks_ to that list. It took me three years to starts getting over that one time some moron from eleventh grade asked me if my carpet matched my drapes. I didn't get it at first, but wasn't stupid. When I typed the insult into the Google search bar, I was scarred for life and might have invented a new shade of mortification in the process. I didn't attend school for three days after that, hiding my face from the word in my house, binging on junk food and watching reruns of older _ER_ episodes and crying and making sure I didn't pick up the phone when Sam called. I was too ashamed to talk to him for that.

"Thank you so much! I promise you won't regret it," she told me, beaming, and a small part of me feared that it wasn't just any grade she needed; it was a passing grade because she was close to failing and the exam was thirty percent of the overall. But that was impossible for someone like her. People like me failed class and went to summer school and people like her got jobs as actresses and fashion models.

"… Yeah… okay…" It came out worse than before, sounding hung over raspy. I felt the tips of my ears heat, intent on looking anywhere but her face. If I cast my eyes her way for even a second, I felt might cry. She was so pretty, so successful, so irritatingly likeable. She got everything she wanted before she even knew she wanted it and here was I, the one who was called Weasley through the duration of third grade. I wasn't sure how that particular one was insulting, because I actually liked Ron Weasley as much as I did Hermione, despite his weird dorky behavior, but it still counted as another scar to my mental state.

I heard things in school that made me want to crawl into a hole in the ground and die of shame, especially when a particular name was called loudly, for everyone to hear. And then I was called a crybaby when I actually got tired of hearing a particularly cruel insult and had a minor outburst. That, of course, led to more humiliation. It seemed no matter what I did, I only ended up feeling worse than I did before.

"Great; meet you after school?" Well… way to unceremoniously impose your schedule on me. It wasn't like I had a life or anything.

"I'm sorry, I can't. I'm busy," I whispered, unwilling to admit that I had work, much less _where _I worked. It was embarrassing enough as it were. Besides, some of us actually had to earn the roof over our heads and the clothes on our backs. Not that she would know anything about that.

"Okay… how about Monday?"

I thought for a moment. On Monday I had a shift at the diner right after school, until seven thirty, and after I usually went to Sam's house for homework. Tuesday I was at the shop from four to eight, Wednesday was my day off because of the therapy sessions. Friday I was free in the evening but worked the night shift at Burger King. My weekends were time for the homework I never did, the housework I never did, and Sam's house, which I always went to.

"I can't. I'm sorry," I echoed again, whimpering the words like they might bite my tongue out if I said them too loud. She bit her bottom lip a little. Well it wasn't hard to see why Sam thought he was in love with her since seventh grade.

"Well I can't tomorrow, and Tuesday is all filled up…"

"Can you come by the Grill tonight, at seven thirty?" I asked softly, as not to impose authority. I agreed to hang out with Sam and Miles tonight, but this was a school credit at stake. I'd have to speak to Student Services, and there was no way I was giving that credit up. It was _mine_. So I guessed I'd have to rearrange some things. And I could get off work a half hour early, but take on an extra hour, maybe more, at BK. Come to think of it, I could get a few hours every night and drop some hours in the evening. It would clear up study time and I could get in more hours for myself. I already sleep through most of my weekends till two in the afternoon, so I can catch up on lost sleep hours – I loved them so – on Sunday and Saturday. It would be more comfortable that way.

I put that metal note in storage as I devote my entire attention back to Banes.

"Yeah, sure thing," Michaela whispered, nodding her head just a fraction.

"Okay; and you don't have to bring anything, either. I have everything we'd need," I said. I need to see what I was up against, and for that I needed to test her. If she was hopeless, then maybe I wouldn't even bother. But if there was still saving her, there was no way any laptop of hers could help me. Plus she was way too popular to show up at a diner with her books and computer. I had my own equipment and she could borrow it.

So… Student Services betrayed me to this girl; they thought that I was hopeless if I didn't get that extra credit. Then again, I'm missing two credits from freshmen year, so it's a lot of help. Nevertheless, who let them decide who I needed to help? I had enough of my own academic problems, thank you very much. I didn't need Her Majesty, The Queen over here to increase the load with _her_ issues. Sure, I needed the grades; otherwise I wouldn't graduate on time; but still, why should I care what's going on with anyone else's marks? Moreover, why would I _help them_ if they're failing? It was _her_ responsibility to keep up with the program and she was the one to answer if she didn't have enough credit at the end of the year, to graduate. So where did _I_ come in, in this picture? Did she see me running to her when I didn't understand something in science? No; I had Sam for that.

I was in an awkward state, caught between worshiping and hating her, every instinct I had telling me that she was a plastic doll, prettied up for the close-up and would probably just show up to embarrass me in front of my coworkers. My mind, on the other hand told me to give her a shot because Sam liked her, a lot, and it was my responsibility to either support him of scold him for being stupid.

I really wanted to turn to her and say, _look, just because the teacher paired us up of for science last year, it doesn't mean that you and I are friends; go find yourself someone else to bother_. But then there was also the 'Sam' side of me, and I knew he'd want this. My connection to Mikaela was _his_ connection to Mikaela. Whatever humiliation this might cost me, I was willing to wing it for my friend. I owed him that much at least; but just to be on the safe side, I'd stay shorter than grass and quieter than bottled water. I wouldn't do anything that would in any way result in embarrassment and I would survive. Since I wasn't a woman of words in front of strangers, that part would be easy. All I had to do was keep my cool.

"Michaela?" I said softly as the lesson proceeded, "Make that seven fifteen." Maybe if I timed it well enough, I'd still be able to catch up with Sam and Miles.

"Sure… and it's actually _Mikaela_."

"I said that," I whispered self cautiously. Why did she correct me? I didn't say her name wrong, did I? Oh, bloody hell; I said her name wrong, didn't I? There went my _No Embarrassment_ rule; out the window it went. That's it, she'd never let me live it down. I was done for, over, caput.

"No, you said _Michaela_. It's _Mikaela_, with a _k_." It was? I could have sworn she said it was pronounced Michaela with a _ch_. Mikaela… Mikaela Banes… it sounded weird; Michaela was better. Michaela Banes… Mycha Banes… yes, much better than _Mikaela_. Well, at least I found one flaw in her. Although it wasn't really hers; it was her parents' for naming her the way they did.

That was relevant, though! I couldn't believe I said her name wrong! I always said her name right before. Now she spoke to me and one of the first coherent, legible things I said was her name, and it _wasn't_ her name!

I kept my head down as she smiled at me with thanks and walked away, leaving me to hide away my humiliation and wish I could just vanish into thin air.

This was too much.

I couldn't tutor someone like Mikaela. My self of self-worth was already on the floor; I didn't need it dropping to the negatives. Oh well, at least I was helping Sam. That had to count for something, right?

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><p><em><strong>Closing note:<strong> so there you have it, the second chapter. it was a sucker to write, considering how long it is. But hey, it's all cool, right? Anyway, I discontinued the Ink On Paper like MONTHS ago, and I still see people reading it today! Some sixteen chapters had over fourteen thousand reads; it's crazy awesome! I wish for that and more for this fic, which is a rewrite of Ink On Paper (hence the similar title), so please be kind and let me know what you think, especially what you think I should improve on :)_

_Also, I know that there are probably some spelling errors in here, but the chapter is so long that my beta read it over, and then I read it over, and then my sister read it over, and just before I posted this I went over it again and still found a few mistakes. I'ts just too long to get them all. I'll revise it again in a few days, but I have a fic I need to beta for someone, and I have another fic I'm working on actively, and I have work at eight in the morning tomorrow so please bear with it for a couple of days *pleads guiltily*. I promise to fix it as soon as I have the chance!_

_Remember to review!_


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